Laryngeal Cancer

What is laryngeal cancer?

Laryngeal cancer affects your larynx, part of your throat. Your larynx helps you speak, breathe and swallow. It contains your vocal cords. Cancer affecting your larynx or vocal cords happens when cells grow uncontrollably in your larynx. As these cancerous (malignant) cells multiply, they invade tissues and damage your body.

Laryngeal cancer can form in any of the three main parts of your larynx:

●   Supraglottis (upper part): More than one in three laryngeal cancers (35%) start here.

●   Glottis (middle part): More than half of laryngeal cancers (60%) start here, where your vocal cords are

●   Subglottis (lower part): About 5% of laryngeal cancers — 1 in 20 — start here.

Symptoms and Causes

When to see doctor ?

It’s easy to mistake the first signs of laryngeal cancer for other conditions. The most common symptom — hoarseness that doesn’t improve after a few weeks — is easy to mistake as a sign of a cold. If you experience the following symptoms, talk to a healthcare provider for an accurate diagnosis:

●      Sore throat or a cough that doesn’t improve.

●      Voice changes, such as hoarseness, which does not improve after two weeks.

●      Pain or other difficulties when you swallow.

●      Lump in your neck or throat.

If you have these symptoms, seek medical attention right away:

●      Trouble breathing (dyspnea).

●      Breathing that’s noisy and high-pitched (stridor).

●      The feeling that something’s in your throat (Globus sensation).

●      Coughing up blood (hemoptysis).