Virchow,1 in 1863, and later Stoerk,2 in 1880, classified laryngeal papilloma as a benign tumor of connective tissue origin and suggested that the generic name for the tumor should be "fibroma," with the term "papillary" used as a descriptive adjective. This led to a long controversy as to whether there should be any pathologic distinction between a true papilloma of connective tissue origin and a papillary hypertrophy of epithelial origin.
It may be difficult to distinguish between these conditions histologically; but clinically, the difference is very striking. Papillary hypertrophy is commonly seen in adults; is almost invariably located in the posterior half of the larynx, and is the result of a chronic irritation of the mucous membrane due to syphilis, tuberculosis or a long-standing catarrhal inflammation. The true papilloma, on the other hand, is most frequently found in young children and is sometimes congenital. The growth may arise