Recent investigations revealed that the 9p arm and 17q arm of human chromosomes harbour tumour suppressor genes (TSGs) with an important role in multistage carcinogenesis. At the 9p arm is located the p16 (MTS1) TSG and probably others with an effect on various human tumours such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, bladder cancer, gliomas, malignant mesotheliomas, melanomas and non-small cell lung carcinomas. In addition, the 17q arm harbours BRCA1 TSG which is responsible for approximately 80% of the familial breast/ovarian cancer cases. In order to investigate the implication of these performed a loss of heterozygosity (LOH) analysis with 10 polymorphic microsatellite markers (three at the 17q arm surrounding the BRCA1 region and seven at the 9p arm). Fourteen of the 17 (82%) tumours exhibited deletions at 9p. The highest incidence of LOH (6/13, 46%) was found for the marker D9S157 at 9p22. One sample exhibited deletion of all the informative markers tested indicating deletion of the complete 9p arm. No homozygous deletions were found. LOH at the 17q arm near the BRCA1 locus was found in 6 (35%) among 17 specimens. The results of this study indicate that allelic deletions at 9p are frequent in the development of laryngeal tumours. The highest incidence of LOH was found for the marker D9S157 which is near, but distinct from the location of p16 (MTS1) tumour suppressor gene, indicating the presence of multiple tumour suppressor genes within this chromosomal region. In addition, BRCA1 TSG is implicated in the development of laryngeal tumours.