Efficacy of autofluoroscence videoendoscopy in the diagnosis of laryngeal lesions.

Aim of this prospective preliminary study was to assess effectiveness and reliability of autofluorescence endoscopy in the diagnosis of laryngeal lesions, in particular, evaluating whether it could represent an improvement in comparison to standard endoscopy alone. A total of 81 laryngeal biopsy specimens, taken from 46 consecutive patients who underwent intra-operative endoscopic assessment in a period of 2 years, were examined. Thirteen patients underwent the procedure for presumed benign lesions; the other 33 cases for pre-operative endoscopic suspicion of pre-cancerous or cancerous lesions. In our experience, autofluorescence evaluation seemed to accurately delineate the limits of the tumour and the possible presence of second primary, proving a useful guide in the choice of sites to make a biopsy. In particular, this endoscopic method has proved to be characterized by higher sensitivity and specificity not inferior to standard endoscopy, both in the discrimination between benign and preneoplastic/neoplastic lesions and between pre-neoplastic and neoplastic. Correct choice of the application field is mandatory in order to obtain the maximum effectiveness of this method. Autofluorescence endoscopy, in fact, was found to be very useful in the evaluation of untreated tissues with suspected pre-cancerous or cancerous lesions. On the contrary, in the study of "frankly benign" laryngeal lesions, this exam does not improve upon the results obtained by standard endoscopy but increases the risk of false positives. The best results can be obtained only by integration of data provided by both white-light and accurate auto-fluorescence endoscopic assessment.