3.1 Clinical and pathological characteristics
Of the 163 patients with vocal cord leukoplakia included in this study, 158 (96.9%) were male and 5 (3.1%) were female, and the median age was 59 (26–86) years. There were 126 cases of unilateral onset of vocal cord leukoplakia and 37 cases of bilateral onset, totaling 200 lateral lesions. Among the 200 lateral lesions, there were 152 (76.0%) cases of benign leukoplakia and 48 (24.0%) cases of malignant leukoplakia (Table 1).