[Laryngocele: clinical and therapeutic study of 60 cases]

Sixty patients with laryngocele were diagnosed in the last seven years: 25 of them without previous laryngeal pathology (group A) and the rest 35 with laryngeal or pharyngeal cancer (group B). The laryngocele was unilateral in the majority of the 25 patients of group A (68%). The internal laryngoceles were the most common type (63%). The initial symptom was hoarseness in 56% of these patients and 20% developed, in their evolution, an acute respiratory distress. The diagnosis was clinical in 16 patients and radiological in the rest. Endoscopically marsupialization with laser-CO2 was performed to remove internal laryngoceles. The mixed and external laryngoceles were completely removed via an external cervical approach without the need to perform any thyrotomy. The diagnosis was radiological by CT in the 35 patients of the group B. In 30 of them the CT was performed to evaluate the local extension of the laryngeal or pharyngeal cancer before its treatment. Supraglottic carcinoma was the most common laryngeal tumor (50%). The anatomic relationship between laryngocele and laryngeal cancer was ipsilateral to each other only in 50% of the patients. In the other 5 patients, no laryngocele was found in the radiological study previous to the treatment of the laryngeal or pharyngeal cancer. The diagnosis was made after chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy treatment.