The consultants all agree to treat this patient who has a seemingly poor prognosis. However, they disagree as to the method and order of treatment. A patient's nutritional status is taken seriously by all 3 experts, although no one would delay surgery to correct a patient's weight loss. Drs. Komisar and Miller consider a weight loss of 10% significant and prefer to assess a patient with lymphocyte counts, serum albumin and transferrin levels, and creatinine/height index. Dr. Osguthorope follows serum hemoglobin, transferrin, prealbumin, and albumin levels. All the experts prefer an enteral route for weight gain. With regard to diagnosis, the experts agree that endoscopy plays an important role in tumor staging. Drs. Komisar and Osguthorpe believe that a tracheotomy should be performed prior to endoscopy. Dr. Miller would prefer intubation with an endotracheal tube but if there were any question of safety, he would proceed with a tracheotomy under local anesthesia. Confirming the histology of the pulmonary lesion is important. Dr. Komisar would proceed with flexible bronchoscopy and if tissue could not be obtained with this method he would obtain a fine-needle biopsy. He believes that if the histology matches that of the larynx, the pulmonary lesion is a metastasis. Dr. Osguthorpe would also obtain a needle biopsy of the lung lesion. If no other lesions are seen on the CT, he would consider this a second primary. Dr. Miller states that unless the histologies are different, the question of primary vs metastatic disease is unanswerable.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)