[Recent trends in studies on carcinogenesis in familial adenomatous polyposis]

Familial adenomatous polyposis is rare disease, but it is considered as the most important clinical model for studying cancer control and carcinogenesis in general, by its extremely high risk for colorectal cancer as well as for malignancies of diverse organs which is transmitted by autosomal dominant mode. According to Knudson, the mutation for a dominantly inherited cancer susceptibility may be the first step in a recessive change in the tumor cell and same gene may be involved in both familial and non-familial cases of the tumor. The recent studies by Bodmer et al and by Solomon et al which reported on FAP locus in chromosome 5 and on loss of heterozygosity of this locus in the colorectal cancer have made an important break through in proving the Knudson's hypothesis. The epidemiological, clinical and pathological observations on FAP including our studies has been discussed in the view of these recent development of molecular biology.