The comparative rarity of these so-called desmoid tumors may be seen by referring to very recent statistics gathered by Cabot1 of Boston, who found but3 of this nature in a series of 4,876 abdominal tumors encountered at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Ledderhose in 1890 was at some pains to collect 100 cases. More recently, Pfeiffer2 cites 40 cases seen in the Tübingen clinic during the past 46 years, and adds to this 360 other cases which he gathered from literature.
The term desmoid, by which these growths have generally been described, originated with Johannes Müller in 1838, and was intended to designate tumors of the musculo-aponeurotic tissues of the abdominal wall (tendon-like neoplasms). My own attention was directed to these rather curious growths by three cases seen, respectively, at the New York Cancer Hospital, St. Luke's Hospital in New York and at the City and County Hospital in Denver. These