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• Cell proliferation can be regarded as neoplastic or non-neoplastic
• Neoplastic proliferation is characterised by being:
  • Progressive
  • Purposeless
  • Regardless of surrounding tissues
  • Not related to body needs
  • Parasitic

Non-neoplastic proliferation

• There are several types of non-neoplastic proliferation

Hyperplasia

• Increase in tissue or organ size
• Due to cell proliferation
• Causes include
  • Chronic infection
  • Increased hormonal activity
• Example would be benign prostatic hyperplasia

Hypertrophy

• Increase in tissue or organ size
• Due to enlargement of cell size
• No increase in cell number
• Due to increased functional requirements
• Example would be left ventricular hypertrophy in hypertension

Metaplasia

• Change of one type of differentiated tissue to another
• Usually of same class but less specialised
• Occurs in both epithelial and connective tissue
• Often associated with hyperplasia
• Examples would be squamous metaplasia in the bronchial epithelium

Dysplasia

• Dysplasia is disordered cell development
• May accompany hyperplasia or dysplasia
• Due to increased mitosis
• Cells become increasingly abnormal
• Premalignant conidtion

Author:  Dr Shakeeb Khan

Last updated: 03 January 2010

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