부산대학교 도서관

Clinical and histopathological examinations were performed on 188 cases of vocal cord polyp.In our patients the vocal cord polyps were most frequently found in males than females, the ratio being 6 to 4. In one half of these cases, namely 89 cases, the polyps were located approximately at the junction of the middle and anterior thirds of the total cord length. The size of polyps was mostly either miliary or rice grain in size. As to the duration of symptoms (hoarseness), about six months had elapsed before operation in most cases.After the histological examination, the epithelial layer of the polyps showed less histological changes as compared with the subepithelial layer.The subepithelial layer showed various changes, and the author observed regional circulatory disturbances such as hemmorrhage, seruminfiltration, vascular expansion and thrombosis. After our examination the histopathology of the vocal cord polyp would be classified in the following four types, d. i. exudative (102 cases), proliferative (40 cases), combined (22 cases) and granulation (8 cases) types.Some correlation between the duration of the lesion and their histological findings was observed. Either exudative or proliferative type was observed in both cases with shorter or longer duration, but there were more cases belonging to the proliferative type than those of exudative type in the cases of more than 4 years duration. After these findings it is considered that the initial exudative histological changes might become proliferative with time.The author would conclude that the vocal cord polyps might appear owing to eigher the localized circulatory disturbances or inflammations, since there were histopathologically findings caused by the circulatory disturbances and also some findings associated with inflammation.