Laryngeal carcinoma in Mosul

Abstract EN

Objective : Laryngeal carcinoma is regarded as the commonest upper aero-digestive tract cancer and the commonest head and neck cancer.

Our aim is to present data about the incidence of various laryngeal carcinoma in Mosul after 1991 and compare the results with previous studies before the war.

Methods : Retrospective study done in Oncology and Nuclear Medicine hospital, Mosul Military Hospital, Al-Zahrawi Teaching Hospital and Al-Rahma private hospital, over eight years period from January 1994 till December 2002.

Four hundred twenty patients with laryngeal carcinoma were included in the study.

Clinical data including age and sex of the patients, in addition to the histological reports from the case files were collected and analyzed.

Results : Out of the total 420 patients with laryngeal carcinoma, male to female ratio was 3.6:1, of which 97.2 % were squamous cell carcinoma, 1.4 % adeno¬carcinoma.

The age range was between 36 and 85 years with mean age of 60 years.

Heavy smoking was found to be highly significant related to the development of laryngeal cancer as 88 % of the patients were heavy smokers.

Conclusions : This study revealed higher frequency of laryngeal cancers than what reported by previous studies performed in the same locality (Mosul) during the previous decade.

This could be attributed to the general effect of the Gulf War 1991 and the type of weapons used in it.

There is a need for more study in different parts of Iraq about this theory as a cause for the increasing incidence of malignancy in Iraq after the War of 1991.