Clustering of adenomas in the large intestine.

In a necropsy study of 68 men and 36 women with single or multiple adenomas of the large intestine the distribution of all adenomas within the bowel in individual patients was examined. Each adenoma was recorded both by its distance in centimetres from the caecal pole and by the intestinal segment in which it was found. Adenomas in individual patients were shown to occur significantly closer together than expected from the general distribution of adenomas within each age group. The statistically significant, but not very strong effect of clustering may be caused by the existence of one or more fields of the large intestine specific to individuals who have a higher than average propensity for neoplastic development.