Acetowhite staining in the detection of laryngeal disease.

The acetowhite staining reaction is widely used as a reliable adjunct to the diagnosis of malignant lesions in gynaecology, but its application in vocal cord lesions has not been assessed before. The use of the acetic acid staining reaction in selecting sites for sampling on the vocal cord is considered in this study. A 3% acetic acid solution was applied intraoperatively before biopsy to the larynx of eight patients who had either diffuse erythematous or polypoidal vocal cords. Attempts were made to correlate the degree of acetowhitening with the underlying histological findings. There was a very poor correlation between acetowhitening and the histological diagnosis, and very poor demarcation between stained and unstained areas. The application of acetic acid is not a useful adjunct to biopsy selection in the larynx.