An association of chronic alcohol consumption with morphological alterations of the laryngeal mucosa in rats

Abstract

Within the last decades a considerable amount of epidemologic evidence has been built up to implicate chronic alcohol consumption as a major risk factor not only for oral and pharyngeal cancer, but also for laryngeal cancer. The mechanisms that underlie alcohol-related cancers of the larynx have remained largely unclear. Since the epithelium of the glottic region normally has no direct contact with alcoholic beverages, alcohol-related alterations of glottic mucosa have been questioned. In the present study 20 male Wistar rats were fed nutritionally adequate liquid diets containing 36% of the total calories either as ethanol or isocaloric carbohydrates for 6 months. Morphometric analysis of the glottic mucosa in the ethanol-fed rats showed a significant reduction in epithelial thickness of the glottic epithelium of the anterior commissure as well as of the posterior commissure (P < 0.001). Morphometric analysis of the basal cell nuclei of the glottic epithelium did not show any statistically significant differences between ethanol-fed rats and control rats. These findings indicate that chronic ethanol consumption can cause a significant atrophy of the glottic mucosal epithelium in the rat and suggest an enhanced susceptibility toward locally acting chemical carcinogens.