The history, aetiology and epidemiology of laryngeal carcinoma

Our plain-English summary of The history, aetiology and epidemiology of laryngeal carcinoma, by M.A. Rafferty, J.E. Fenton, A.S. Jones (Clinical Otolaryngology and Allied Sciences, 2001).

The study

• Authors: M.A. Rafferty, J.E. Fenton, A.S. Jones
• Journal: Clinical Otolaryngology and Allied Sciences
• Published: 2001;26(6):442-6
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 41 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

This review described the history of the diagnosis and treatment of laryngeal cancer and summarised published evidence on its epidemiology and causes. The historical section traced the mirror laryngoscope (Babington's 'glottiscope' of 1829, Garcia's 1855 paper, and Czermak's reflected artificial light), Billroth's first total laryngectomy for cancer in 1873, and Crile's 1906 en bloc neck dissection. The epidemiology section reported that laryngeal cancer was the eleventh commonest cancer in men worldwide, with an estimated 121 000 new cases in 1985. It was much more common in men than women, and the highest rates were in parts of Spain, Italy, Poland and Brazil. The authors reviewed case-control studies showing strong effects of cigarette smoking and alcohol. In a Polish study of 249 cases and 965 controls, smoking alone was estimated to account for 95% of cases, and most investigators concluded that the two exposures had a multiplicative combined effect. On asbestos, the authors stated that exposure increased laryngeal cancer risk. A Shanghai case-control study found an odds ratio of 2.0 (95% CI 1.0-4.3) but no dose-response relation. A New York study found a non-significant odds ratio of 1.3 for glottic cancer, no trend with years employed in the asbestos industry, no association with supraglottic cancer and no synergy with smoking. The article did not describe how the studies were selected.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This article was a review, not a new study. The authors described the history of laryngeal cancer treatment and summarized published research on its epidemiology and causes. The article did not say how the studies were chosen. The authors wrote that the main established risk factors were tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking, and that most investigators had concluded their combined risk was multiplicative. On asbestos, the authors stated that exposure increases the risk of laryngeal cancer, and that the available evidence supports an association with occupational exposure. The review cited two studies. A case-control study in Shanghai found an odds ratio of 2.0 (95% CI 1.0–4.3) for asbestos exposure, with no dose-response relation to how often or how long people were exposed. A New York study found an elevated but not statistically significant odds ratio of 1.3 for glottic cancer, no trend with years in the asbestos industry, no link with supraglottic cancer, and no synergistic effect with smoking. No asbestos fiber types were named.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Narrative review of the history, epidemiology and aetiology of laryngeal carcinoma, with no stated search method.
• Who was studied: Published literature on laryngeal cancer: history of treatment, worldwide incidence and risk factors. The number of studies reviewed and how they were selected were not stated.
• Exposure: Tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking mainly. Asbestos was also covered, with no fiber types named. Mustard gas and sulphuric acid were mentioned as implicated exposures.
• Main results:
  • In a cited case-control study from Shanghai, asbestos exposure was associated with an odds ratio of 2.0 (95% CI 1.0–4.3) for laryngeal cancer. No dose-response relation with frequency or duration of exposure was observed.
  • In a cited New York study, asbestos exposure was associated with an elevated but not statistically significant odds ratio of 1.3 for glottic cancer. Risk showed no linear trend with years employed in the asbestos industry.
  • In the same New York study, no relationship between asbestos and supraglottic cancer was seen, and no synergistic effect between cigarette smoking and asbestos exposure was seen.
  • The review identified tobacco smoking and alcohol drinking as the major established risk factors for laryngeal cancer.
  • A cited Southern European case-control study estimated that about 90% of current laryngeal cancer incidence could be prevented by avoiding smoking and alcohol, with tobacco responsible for most of the risk.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors stated that the available evidence supports an association between occupational exposure (in the asbestos section, where the word 'asbestos' appears to be missing from the sentence) and an increased risk of laryngeal cancer. Elsewhere they wrote that asbestos exposure increases the risk.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Throat and laryngeal cancer.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Epidemiology, Carcinoma, Laryngeal Cancer, Case-Control Study, Odds Ratio, Dose-response relationship.

Related studies

• The epidemiology of laryngeal cancer in Brazil — V. Wünsch Filho (2004)
• Chrysotile fibers in tissue adjacent to laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma in cases with a history of occupational asbestos exposure — S.K. Wronkiewicz, V.L. Roggli, et al. (2020)
• Asbestos, dental X-rays, tobacco, and alcohol in the epidemiology of laryngeal cancer — M.W. Hinds, D.B. Thomas, et al. (1979)
• Occupational risk factors for laryngeal carcinoma: Connecticut, 1975-1980 — R.T. Zagraniski, J.L. Kelsey, et al. (1986)
• Current theories for the development of nonsmoking and nondrinking laryngeal carcinoma — R. Wight, V. Paleri, et al. (2003)
• Asbestosis, laryngeal carcinoma, and malignant peritoneal mesothelioma in an insulation worker — A. Fischbein, J.C. Luo, et al. (1991)

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