BMC Cancer 2009, 9:251 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/9/251 FDiigsturribeu1tion of colonic mucosal measurements in WT and KO mice Distribution of colonic mucosal measurements in WT and KO mice. Histograms of measurements illustrate distribu- tion of crypt length in wild type and CyCAP-/- animals. and no evidence of diffuse hyperplasia was ever detected in patients with colorectal carcinoma despite demonstra- ble abnormalities in cell kinetics in histologically normal mucosa in some patients with adenocarcinoma [60] ade- nomatous polyps [61], familial polyposis [62], and ulcer- ative colitis [63]. The hyperplasia-neoplasia model has also been chal- lenged at least by one experiment in rodents [64] in which experimentally produced megacolon was associated with reactive mucosal hyperplasia, but showed less malignant tumors than rats without megacolon, both treated by dimethylhydrazine for 20 weeks. One possible interpreta- tion of these results would suggest that experimentally induced reactive hyperplasia is not a premalignant condi- tion and may even be protective of neoplastic transforma- tion. This is in contrast with our findings of increased number of tumors developing in animals with more pro- Page 5 of 11 (page number not for citation purposes)