What are the symptoms of laryngeal cancer metastasis

Because each laryngeal cancer patient has a different physical constitution, the degree of disease deterioration is different, which determines the different metastasis and spread of laryngeal cancer. Laryngeal cancer is a relatively serious disease. It is more curable in the early stage. Generally, in the late stage, because patients do not pay attention to it and let it develop, it causes different degrees of spread and metastasis. Laryngeal cancer can have the following 4 ways of metastasis and spread according to its degree of differentiation and primary site, as well as the symptoms of metastasis and spread of laryngeal cancer.

Because the larynx is protected by the thyroid cartilage, it spreads outwards relatively slowly. Its direct spread is first to infiltrate the submucosal membrane along the mucosal surface. Vocal cord cancer mainly spreads backward, forward through the anterior commissure to the opposite vocal cord, and backward to the arytenoid cartilage, but rarely invades the laryngeal ventricular zone upward. Supraglottic cancer develops faster and is most likely to spread to the pre-epiglottic space, or invade the pyriform sinus along the epiglottic folds, or to the epiglottic valley and tongue root of the posterior pharyngeal wall along the pharyngeal epiglottic folds. Subglottic cancer often develops forward and downward, infiltrating the opposite subglottis, but rarely invades backward. Laryngeal cancer can metastasize through the lymphatic system, with the cervical lymph nodes appearing first. The glottic type has few lymphatic vessels in the vocal cords, so metastasis occurs late. The supraglottic type has abundant lymphatic tissue, so lymphatic metastasis occurs earlier. The early or late occurrence of lymph node metastasis is related to the primary site of the lesion and clinical stage, as well as the histological characteristics of the tumor. Clinical statistics show that non-invasive carcinoma in situ has almost no lymph node metastasis, while about 30% of patients with invasive cancer have lymph node metastasis. If the lesion is limited to the glottis, the chance of metastasis is less than 1%. However, if the lesion has invaded the laryngeal ventricle, laryngeal vestibule, and the subglottic area, or the primary site of the tumor is in the laryngeal vestibule, about 30% of them may have near lymph node metastasis. Cancer in the edge of the laryngeal vestibule or the pyriform sinus has a higher chance of cervical lymph node metastasis, which can reach about 50%. Hematogenous metastasis of laryngeal cancer is not very common, and generally occurs in the late stage, which is a manifestation of widespread metastasis throughout the body. Only a few patients in the early stage metastasize to other parts of the body, internal organs or bones through the blood circulation. Among all laryngeal cancer patients, less than 5% have blood-borne metastasis. Some people analyze the reasons for hematogenous metastasis and believe that it may be that the tumor directly erodes the blood vessel wall, allowing cancer cells to enter the blood circulation. Or it may be because it first invades the lymphatic vessels and then enters the veins and spreads with the blood.