Abstract
Laryngeal amyloidosis is a rare disorder. We encountered 5 patients with laryngeal amyloidosis, comprising 2 male patients and 3 female patients; the patients ranged widely in age from 26 to 61 years old. All the five patients were evaluated for evidence of systemic involvement: while 4 of them were finally diagnosed as having localized laryngeal amyloidosis, in the fifth patient, the possibility of a lesion present in the chest could not be excluded. Of the 5 cases, 3 are under follow-up until date, and in each of these cases, the lesion remains stable in size.
A total of 180 cases of laryngeal amyloidosis were reported in the Japanese literature from 1940 to 2012. The most commonly affected site in the reported cases was the supraglottic region. While many patients present with hoarseness, there may be many patients with small lesions in the supraglottic region with no symptoms. Because of the deposition of amyloid, surgical resection is impossible. Long-term follow up is required to prevent airway stenosis. The main treatment of amyloidosis should be limited to debulking operation by LMS and the surgical invasiveness should be minimized in order not to impair the patient's quality of life.
