The clinical staging systems for laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer is limited as a prognostic indicator. This is due to several factors including different biological characteristics of cancer in this region and various microenvironmental effects depending on subsites. For determining prognostic indicators, the author performed 28 cases of immunohistochemical staining on transforming growth factor alpha and beta in surgically treated squamous cell cercinoma of the larynx and hypopharynx. The following results were otained. The rate of TGF-alpha expression compared with clinical and pathological status of tumor exhibited poor prognostic significance. The strong expression of TGF-beta correlated with nodal metastasis, positive extracapsular spread, recurrence and distant metastasis. In conclusion, the expression rate of TGF-alpha and TGF-beta not only reflected the biological behavior of cancer, but correlated closely with the tumor factors. However, these indicators related with tumor factors in complicated patterns. Therefore, the immunohistochemical study of TGF-alpha and TGF-beta may be considered as an adjuvant method for supporting the reliability of tumor factor as a prognostic indication of laryngeal and hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.