Laryngeal metastasis from a pulmonary papillary adenocarcinoma: a case report

Metastases to the larynx from distant primaries are very rare. The present article reports a case of metastatic papillary adenocarcinoma of the larynx of lung origin. The patient was a 59-year-old female non-smoker, who had a history of adenocarcinoma of the right lung. For the laryngeal tumor, we performed a partial laryngectomy following biopsy. The tumor of the larynx was a papillary adenocarcinoma resembling the lung tumor, both demonstrating positive immunohistochemical staining for pulmonary surfactant apoprotein. The findings emphatically indicated the laryngeal tumor to be metastasis from the primary papillary adenocarcinoma of the lung. The present case report presents the clinical findings, course of disease and histopathological findings with brief reviews of the literature.