Contact endoscopy of the vocal cord: normal and pathological patterns.

Contact endoscopy allows an in vivo and in situ study of the superficial layers of the vocal cord epithelium. This technique offers access to some characteristics of the epithelium cells: dimension and shape of the nuclei, nucleus/cytoplasm ratio, keratosis, presence of nucleolus, mitosis and koylocites. Contact endoscopy was performed during microlaryngoscopies in 92 patients with benign, pre-malign and malign pathology of the vocal cords. Systematic confrontation with pathological examination and laryngectomy specimens studied by histology and electron microscopy were used to improve the interpretation of contact endoscopy findings. Based on this correlation it has been possible to analyse the transition of the squamous and ciliated epithelium of the vocal cord as well as to delineate some pathological patterns, e.g. chronic laryngitis, keratosis, dysplasia, tumor and papilloma.