Perpendicular Vascular Changes in NBI-CE of Laryngeal Lesions: Diagnostic Accuracy, Reproducibility, and Common Pitfalls.

ABSTRACT: Background/Objectives: Differentiating benign, premalignant, and early malignant vocal fold lesions is challenging. Perpendicular vascular changes (PVCs) per the European Laryngological Society (ELS) are key malignancy indicators. Enhanced contact endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (NBI-CE) visualizes intrapapillary capillary loops (IPCLs) at high magnification, independent of gross morphology. However, defining malignancy as any PVC increases sensitivity but lowers specificity-particularly in papillomas-whereas limiting malignancy to narrow-angle PVC improves specificity but risks false negatives and reduced reproducibility. Methods: We intraoperatively evaluated 146 histology-proven vocal fold lesions using NBI-CE. Six raters (three experienced otolaryngologists, three PhD

SUBMITTER: Pickert P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12691704 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature