Diagnosis Of Laryngeal Disorders Research Articles

Comparative Study between Laryngoscope and Transcutaneous Laryngeal Ultrasonography in Diagnosis of Laryngeal Disorders

Comparative Study between Laryngoscope and Transcutaneous Laryngeal Ultrasonography in Diagnosis of Laryngeal Disorders

Clinical usefulness of transcutaneous laryngeal ultrasonography in otolaryngology practice during COVID-19 pandemic: a literature review.

As a consequence of the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, the clinical practice of otolaryngologists underwent profound transformations. Non-aerosol-generating procedures have been researched and implemented. Transcutaneous laryngeal ultrasonography (TLUSG) provides a rapid and noninvasive method to assess laryngeal function and can support the management of laryngeal disorders. With the aim of investigating the clinical usefulness of TLUSG in otolaryngology practice, a review of the literature published on PubMed, Cochrane Library and Ovid/ Medline databases was performed up to March 2022. 38 studies were eligible to be included in the review. The selected papers were divided into six topics of interest: evaluation of vocal cords function, diagnosis of laryngeal disorders in infants and children, evaluation of swallowing disorders, assessment of laryngeal cancer and other laryngeal lesions, ultrasound-guided cricothyroidotomy, ultrasound-guided laryngeal electromyography. The results of this review demonstrated that TLUSG, applied to ENT practice, can be a valid method for dynamic laryngeal assessment and airway management, since it is time-efficient, non invasive, well tolerated and easily performed.

Reduction of Risk Factors in Patients with Behavioral Dysphonia After Vocal Group Therapy

The origin and development of dysphonia, particularly behavioral dysphonia, is associated with several risk factors. Here, we verified the effectiveness of group therapy in reducing the risk factors, and established the association between risk factors and sex, age, profession, and diagnosis of laryngeal disorders in patients with behavioral dysphonia. This is a descriptive, quantitative, field intervention study. Participants (n = 26, adult patients of both sexes), with a diagnosis of behavioral dysphonia, received group therapy intervention. Data for risk factors were collected pre- and posttherapy using the Vocal Screening Protocol. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (Student t test, chi-squared test or Spearman correlation test). The majority (80.8%, n = 21) of patients were female, 65.4% (n = 17) were not in a vocal profession, and 42.3% (n = 11) presented with a lesion in the membranous portion of the vocal fold. The number of personal risk factors decreased after group therapy (P = 0.04). In addition, age was correlated with total (P = 0.001), environmental (P = 0.002), and personal (P = 0.003) vocal risk factors posttherapy. This study revealed an association between the reduction of personal risk factors and vocal group therapy, and a correlation between age and total, environmental, and personal vocal risk factors posttherapy. Thus, maintenance and origins of the behaviors that modify the behavioral aspects of the participants directly influence the production of individual vocal habits.

Assessment of laryngeal disorders through the global energy of speech

Voice analysis is an important tool in the diagnosis of laryngeal disorders. Among distinct signal processing techniques employed for voice analysis, the spectrogram is commonly used, as it allows for a visualization of the variation of the energy of the signal as a function of both time and frequency. In this context, this study investigates the use of the global energy of the signal, estimated through the spectrogram, as a tool for discrimination between signals obtained from healthy and pathological subjects. This research has also exploited the potential use of the global energy of the voice signal to discriminate distinct laryngeal disorders. In total, 94 subjets were involved in this study, from which 46 were dysphonic and 48 normal. The diagnosis of laryngeal disorders was confirmed by means of a videolaryngoscopic examination. Participants were also subjected to a clinical examination of vocal acoustic through the recording of the sustained vowel /ɛ/. The global energy allowed for the discrimination between normal and disphonic voice. Furthermore, this technique could discriminate the voice signal of patients suffering from left vocal fold paralysis from those suffering from other investigated disorders. The results suggest the global energy of the signal as an auxiliary and alternative tool for the diagnosis between normal and dysphonic voice.