[Role of aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase in developing laryngeal cancer among smokers]

The inducibility of aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) in lymphocytes had been evaluated in 31 patients with laryngeal cancer, 30 patients with cancer at other sites (excluding lung cancer), and 46 healthy individuals with no history of neoplastic disease. The results were as follows: 1. A highly significant overrepresentation of patients with laryngeal cancer with a high AHH inducibility (P less than 0.01) as well as a highly significant under-representation AHH inducibility (P less than 0.01) the healthy controls and patients with cancer at other sites were found. 2. There was a relationship between AHH inducibility and the risk for a smoker to develop laryngeal cancer, i.e., the higher the AHH inducibility in his cells, the higher is the risk to develop this disease. Smokers with a high AHH inducibility had more than nineteen-fold risk to develop laryngeal cancer as compared with non-smokers with low AHH inducibility. 3. The patients with cancer at other sites (excluding lung cancer) showed no significant difference in this respect as compared with healthy controls.