Reportedly, the high density of vessels adjacent to various tumours is associated with increased tendency to metastasis and poor prognosis. In contrast, for other cancers a high vessel density is correlated with a good response to radiation therapy, and thus a good prognosis. In this study we measured the vessel density in 53 small glottic SCC (T1N0 and T2N0), treated with radiation (66-70 Gy). The blood vessels were visualised by an immunohistochemical staining method (ABC), using a primary antibody BE2 which reacts with blood group H antigen on endothelial cells. The intra- and interobserver reproducibility of the vessel counting was good (kappa = 0.78). We found a significant correlation between low vascular density and increased risk of recurrent disease (p = 0.0158). cox multivariate analysis showed that both vascular density and T-status were significant prognostic factors, p = 0.0036 and p = 0.0152 respectively.