Endoscopic findings of early stage vocal fold cancer

To describe early cancerous and precancerous lesions of the laryngeal vocal folds as well as of the most common differential diagnoses, based on a series of microlaryngoscopic photographs. Some introductory remarks about terminology and the classification of epithelial lesions of the vocal folds are included. The paper ends with some comments as to the management of epithelial thickenings (or leukoplakias) of the vocal folds. Malignancy should be suspected as long as it has not been ruled out by histologic diagnosis on adequate biopsies, which is the only way to correctly evaluate the character of such lesions. Precancerous lesions should be controlled by regular follow up examinations as carefully as invasive carcinomas (posttreatment), because there is a high tendency for recurrences or for later development of malignancy in these cases.