Cepstral Peak Prominence of Blom-Singer ‘Non-Indwelling Low Pressure’ and ‘Classic Indwelling’ Voice Prosthesis in Male Tracheo-oesophageal Speakers

Abstract

Introduction: Tracheo-oesophageal (TE) speech is one of the most commonly used alaryngeal voice restoration options for individuals who have undergone a total laryngectomy. Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP) implies the overall voice quality objectively. Aim: To compare the CPP between Blom-Singer non-indwelling low pressure and classic indwelling voice prosthesis across vowel phonation /a/ and text-reading tasks in male TE speakers. Materials and Methods: The study included 10 male TE speakers in the age range of 45-75 years. Dr. Hillenbrand’s ‘Speech Tool’ software was used to measure CPP. Two types of speech prosthesis used were Blom-Singer non-indwelling low pressure and classic indwelling voice prosthesis (both of 16 French diameter) and the tasks vowel phonation and text-reading were considered. The SPSS software, version 15.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) was used for data analysis. The parametric paired t-test was applied to compare CPP between two types of voice prostheses across speech tasks. Results: There was no significant difference between Blom-Singer non-indwelling low pressure voice prosthesis and classic indwelling voice prosthesis for CPP during vowel phonation/a/task {t(9)=0.74, p=0.516} and text-reading task {t(9)=0.72, p=0.947)}. Similarly, there was no significant difference for CPP between speech tasks for Blom-Singer non-indwelling low pressure voice prosthesis {t(9)=1.11, p=0.347)} and Blom-Singer classic indwelling voice prosthesis {t(9)=0.51, p=0.644)}. Conclusion: In TE speakers, CPP is not influenced by prosthesis type in terms of mode of fitting, prosthesis design and valve opening pressure across speech tasks, implying no difference in the objective measure of overall voice quality.