Asbestos body content of the larnyx in asbestos workers. A study of five cases.

Occupational exposure to asbestos has been epidemiologically associated with carcinoma of the larynx; however, no search for or quantitation of laryngeal asbestos bodies has been performed. This report concerns an autopsy study of five patients with occupational asbestos exposure and proven asbestos-associated pulmonary disease in whom histologic sections of the larynx were examined and a digestion-concentration technique was used to isolate and quantitate the asbestos bodies in the remaining laryngeal tissues. No dysplastic epithelial changes were present in the mucosa. Asbestos bodies were recovered from two of the five larynges but from none of ten larynges obtained from autopsy controls.