The role of scanning electron microscopy in the diagnosis of human laryngeal cancer.

Malignant and non-malignant human laryngeal tissue samples (31 cases) were examined first by light microscopy (LM) and then the specimens were reprocessed for scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The presence of LM and SEM signs of malignancy were compared with each other. In all the 22 histologically unambiguous cases the LM and SEM results were in accordance with each other. From the 9 histologically doubtful cases, 2 were found malignant and 3 benign by retrospective SEM. The case histories of these 5 patients have confirmed the SEM results. This preliminary study suggests the application of SEM in histologically doubtful laryngeal biopsies.