Vocal cord leukoplakia – is surgery the only way out?

  Many patients and their families are told that this is a precancerous lesion that needs to be operated on as soon as possible, otherwise it may become cancerous. According to our observation, in the group of patients diagnosed with “vocal cord leukoplakia” and told to undergo surgery, a significant portion or most of them are not strictly leukoplakia lesions, but more mucosal erosion-like inflammatory reactions after some stimulation of the vocal cords, which is at best the prodromal stage of vocal cord leukoplakia, and the real need for surgical treatment It is at best a prodromal stage of leukoplakia of the vocal cords, which is very different from the real proliferative leukoplakia lesions that require surgery in terms of pathology and clinical manifestations.  We have also seen many patients who have undergone surgery and then “relapsed” for a short period of time, and some of them have undergone as many as 9 surgeries before and after, and some of them have vocal abnormalities caused by surgical damage to the vocal cords.  In fact, these vocal cord leukoplakia or vocal cord leukoplakia may be more appropriately attributed to lifestyle diseases. Because from the investigation of the causes of most patients, alcoholism, haphazard eating, irregular life, and voice abuse are the main triggering factors, and the resulting direct stimulation and gastroesophageal reflux stimulation are the main causative factors, plus most of these people have various reasons for not wanting to or not being able to change bad habits, not knowing or not getting the right treatment guidance, so the treatment effect is very poor, and even after the surgery will be fast It is not difficult to understand the recurrence.  So how to control or treat this type of disease?  From the above etiology, we can see that correcting poor lifestyle is the most fundamental measure, never drinking alcohol plus shouting loudly and abusively, and actively treating reflux disease, most of the conditions can be controlled or cured, not to mention causing cancer.  From the clinical point of view, cases with short duration of disease, laryngeal mucous membrane congestion, unilateral or bilateral vocal cord swelling, posterior end granulation and white mantle attached to the vocal cord can be coughed off or touched off are generally not urgent for surgery, and can be treated with local nebulized inhalation or gastric acid control and anti-reflux drugs for 6-8 weeks under the premise of controlling bad living and eating habits, and it is believed that all will have different degrees of improvement.  For cases where conservative treatment is ineffective for more than one month or where the disease has developed, pathological examination can be considered under electronic laryngoscopy. For closely adherent white patches, i.e., real white lesions, CO2 laser excision can be performed under general anesthesia microlaryngoscopy and sent for pathological examination. Again, postoperative lifestyle modification is essential!