[Malignant tumors of the central nervous system].

])'AN,IILIAL POLYPOSIS Of the colon w a s first described by Cripps* in 1882. Since then, case reports and family histories have been eagerly studied, and it has become appa ren t that m a n y pat ients afflicted wi th this disease have a tendency to develop adenocarc inoma in one or more polyps before they have a t ta ined the age of 50 years. 1~ I t was no t felt, 1, 4 however, tha t this proclivity of the familial type of polyps to t ransform into cancer was greater than in cases of isolated polyps; except that in multiple polyposis the chances of t ransformat ion are mul t ip l ied by the greater n u m b e r of polyps. In o ther words, this tendency of polyps of the colon to undergo ma l ignan t t ransformat ion does not seem to be a characteristic of the heredi tary type of the disease alone. in recent years another interest ing characteristic has been noted in pat ients with p0 iypoid disease of the coIon. I t has been observed that different tissue tumors involved other ana tomic sites in cases of diffuse polyposis and that this tendency seemed to be peculiar t o familial polyposis only. GardnerS, ~ in 1952 reported six cases of familial polyposis in which mul t ip le osteomas were associated; O 'Br ien le repor ted in