Abstract
Eighty-seven cases of laryngeal and twelve cases of hypopharyngeal cancer were studied histopathologically by means of whole-organ serial sectioning.
1) Vocal cord fixation in glottic cancer is usually due to the invasion of the thyro-arytenoid muscle by cancer. An invasion of less than 2mm into the thyroarytenoid muscle does not influence mobility of the vocal cord. An invasion of more than 3mm, however, fixes the vocal cord. The correlation between vocal cord fixation and the degree of cancercells invasion in the muscle is important in determining the surgical procedure to be used.
2) In cancer of the anterior commissure, infiltration of tumor cells is not observed in the thyroid cartilage. The low sensitivity of this cancer to radiological therapy is attributed to the deficiency of the connective tissue and blood vessels.
3) The early stage of a laryngeal ventricle cancer may be extremely difficult to diagnose because of the lack of symptoms due to a rather small tumor. No protrusion of a tumor of this type is observed in the space between the thyroid and cricoidcartilage.
