Cancer of the vocal cords

So you think you would like to smoke cigarettes? Here is what smoking cigarettes for 30 years did to one person's larynx. See if you can actually see the vocal cords. This is what squamous cell carcinoma looks like when it grows on the surface of the vocal cords. The large pink area on the left is the left false vocal cord. It likely has tumor given its irregular surface appearance. The white rough area in the middle of the photo is the left vocal cord which is almost completely replaced by cancer. The right and left vocal cords have almost grown together with the cancer. The black area at the bottom of the photo is the opening that he is breathing through. It is about 3 mm wide. When I passed my camera through the opening, it almost completely blocks his airway. He has almost no voice at all since there is very little tissue that is soft enough to vibrate.