The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation of apoptosis to cellular differentiation of head and neck cancer. Fifty-seven cases of head and neck cancer were selected for this study. Direct immunoperoxidase detection of digoxigenin-labelled genomic DNA was carried out to detect apoptotic bodies within the tumor tissues using ApopTag In Situ apoptosis detection kit(Oncor, USA). The numbers of apoptotic bodies observed in ten randomly chosen high power fields were counted and compared to cellular differentiation. The numbers of apoptotic bodies seen in tumors with less cellular differentiation was low, while apoptotic bodies were found more frequently in tumors with higher cellular differentiation(p<0.05). These results suggest that the numbers of apoptotic bodies in the tumor tissues can make it possible to presume indirectly the malignant potentiality of the tumor and will help us to understand the biologic behavior of head and neck cencer.