[Early diagnosis of pulmonary tumors in patients treated for laryngeal cancer]

Abstract

Multiple primary malignant neoplasms occur relatively frequently today and are quite important. If the primary tumor ("index tumor") develops in the upper aero-digestive tract, the incidence of these neoplasms ranges from 10 to 20%, especially in males. The most common second primary site is again in the upper aero-digestive tract and, less frequently, in the lungs or thoracic esophagus. Among head and neck tumors laryngeal cancer is certainly one of the neoplasms most often playing the role of index tumor in association with malignant cephalic and extracephalic tumors. Among the most frequent associations of multiple primary malignant tumors one finds: larynx-lung and larynx-esophagus. As a high incidence of metachronous primary pulmonary cancers were observed during follow-up of patients who had undergone laryngeal surgery, a preventive flexible bronchofiberscope study was performed in 101 patients who had undergone surgery for laryngeal cancer over the ten years period from 1978 to 1987. The patients had a median age of 58.7 years (range 42-81) and were prevalently males (98 males, 3 females). The incidence of second primary neoplasm in the lung was 3%. During this bronchoscopic study the chest x-ray for 2 of the 3 patients with second primary neoplasm in the lung was normal, all 3 had an evident familiar neoplastic predisposition, one had been treated for colon carcinoma prior to laryngectomy. The authors report some personal opinions regarding the larynx-lung neoplastic association and emphasize the application of bronchoscopy in following-up laryngeal cancer patients.