[The anatomic bases of the surgical treatment of pharyngo-laryngeal cancers].

It is essential to recognize certain laryngeal and hypopharyngeal landmarks in order to choose the most appropriate surgical approach for excision of a tumor in any given site: that the larynx has two embryological origins, branchial and non-branchial, separated by the glottis, that the cartilaginous skeleton and the ossification of the thyroid cartilage provide a means for the spread of endolaryngeal cancer, that the pre-epiglottic region is divided in two by a medial wall and is closely connected to the endolarynx through the hollow vascular channels of the fibro-cartilage of the epiglottis, that the connective intralaryngeal tissue - conus elasticus, anterior commissure ligament, conoid ligament, and the articular capsule of the crico-arytenoid joint - must be taken into consideration to explain the spread of the tumor, that there exists the concept of arytenoid unity, that element of the branchial larynx which must be conserved in any functional oncologic surgery to the larynx and pharynx.