State of surgical speech rehabilitation after total laryngectomy

Abstract

This paper reports the present state of speech rehabilitation after total laryngectomy. The tracheal esophageal puncture (TEP) method has become the surgical treatment of choice for aphonia after total laryngectomy. The TEP method has been found to give higher speech acquisition rates and improved intelligibility over nonsurgical methods. TEP is being performed as a primary and secondary procedure with acceptable complication rates. As the prosthesis improves, the inherent disadvantages of a prosthetic method are being overcome. Long-term follow-up is still lacking to determine the permanent role of TEP in speech rehabilitation.