Professor Gao is a special teacher in a key middle school. He basically has a full schedule of classes every day and must have a cigarette after class, so he often suffers from sore throat, foreign body feeling in the throat and occasionally hoarseness. He slowly found that his voice was always hoarse, and his voice always felt unpleasant. He went to the hospital for a laryngoscopy and found a “small thing” growing on his vocal cords, and after surgery, he could no longer stand on the podium to continue his teaching career. Doctors, teachers and other staff need to communicate a lot of words every day, and it is inevitable that they will suffer from chronic pharyngitis over time, feeling discomfort in the throat, foreign body sensation, and occasional hoarseness. However, if hoarseness persists without improvement, then one must be careful not to let laryngeal cancer quietly take hold! Laryngeal cancer is a malignant tumor that occurs in the vocal cords, almost half of which occur above the vocal folds, while others can occur above and below the vocal folds. Vocal folds are the tissues we use to make sound. If tumor grows above the vocal folds, regardless of its size, it will seriously affect the function of the vocal folds, resulting in hoarseness, which is stubborn and difficult to be corrected or relieved. Tumors growing above or below the vocal folds may not be felt obviously in the early stage, but when the tumor grows gradually, it may cause foreign body sensation and constriction in the throat, and in severe cases, it may affect the ventilation function and cause difficulty in breathing. The most important factor that affects the occurrence of laryngeal cancer is smoking. Tobacco contains benzo(a)pyrene and radioactive particulate matter, which are carcinogenic to a certain extent. These substances act on the respiratory mucosa, causing mucosal congestion and edema, which further leads to epithelial hyperplasia and carcinogenesis, and eventually forms laryngeal cancer. Early to mid-stage laryngeal cancer may have different clinical manifestations depending on the primary site, as mentioned above. People often think that this is a symptom of cold or chronic laryngitis, and take some anti-inflammatory drugs or Chinese medicine to clear heat and detoxify, or just brew a cup of “green tea to get rid of the fire”. The throat symptoms caused by cold or pharyngitis will improve quickly with the gradual control of the primary disease, while the hoarseness or throat discomfort caused by laryngeal cancer will aggravate progressively and cannot be cured by anti-inflammatory drugs and other medicines. With the increase of local occupancy of the tumor, persistent hoarseness or even loss of voice may appear, which is often in the middle or late stage. In the treatment of laryngeal cancer, surgery is still preferred in the early stage. The prognosis of laryngeal cancer patients after surgery is relatively good and the local trauma is less. If the disease is in the middle and late stages or even distant metastasis occurs, local surgery has lost its curative significance and the prognosis is poor. Vocal cord polyps can also cause hoarseness and have a certain tendency to become cancerous in the long term, so they should be removed as early as possible and monitored and reviewed regularly to avoid in situ recurrence. In conclusion, once hoarseness without any obvious cause occurs and continues to be unrelieved, it is important to go to a specialized hospital for detailed examination to prevent the occurrence of laryngeal cancer.