title: The epidemiology of laryngeal cancer in a country on the esophageal cancer belt.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Laryngeal cancer is one of the most common malignant neoplasms of the head and neck and occurs predominantly in males. Squamous cell carcinomas arising in the glottic region are the most common of all laryngeal cancers and more prevalent than the supraglottic ones. But this pattern is reverse in some countries. This study was done to investigate the epidemiologic aspect of this subject in Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study
  
  
  METHODS
  During a ten-year period from 1997 to 2007, all patients referred to two tertiary referral hospitals with a diagnosis of laryngeal cancer were enrolled in this study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Laryngeal cancer was diagnosed in a total of 453 patients and confirmed histologically. The average patient age was 59.92 years. Men outnumbered women (9.5:1). Four hundred patients (88.5%) were tobacco smokers. The primary location of the tumor was supraglottic in 221 (49%) cases, followed by glottic in 163 (36.2%), transglottic (the tumor involved all regions of the larynx and the origin was unspecified) in 60 (13.3%), and subglottic in 7 (1.6%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our series, although we excluded transglottic tumors, the supraglottic tumor was dominant and the ratio of supraglottic to glottic tumors was 1.36. This is compatible with results from countries with a reverse ratio.
authors.affiliation: Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Babak
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Saedi
authors.forename: Ebrahim
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Razmpa
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sadeghi
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mojtahed
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mojtahed
keywords: Anatomy; Epidemiology; Esophageal cancer; Iran; Laryngeal neoplasms; Larynx