Although it is true that the great majority of polyps of the rectum and colon are either adenomatous or adenocarcinomatous, some are sarcomatous; and others are fibrous, myxomatous, lipomatous, angiomatous or inflammatory. The term polyp as applied to lesions of the rectum and colon should therefore be considered as a general designation which applies to the form or the shape of the lesion rather than to its histologic or pathologic type.
Because of the relative rarity of polyps of the rectum and colon in infants and children, there are few articles in the literature which deal with the variability of the lesions with respect to number and situation, the different histologic appearances which they may exhibit and the diagnostic and therapeutic problems which they may offer.
There are no informative statistics regarding the incidence of polyps among infants and children. Pennington1 stated that adenomatous polyps are observed with relative