Affiliations 

  • 1 Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 2 Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Electronic address: marinamatbaki@ppukm.ukm.edu.my
J Voice, 2021 May;35(3):487-492.
PMID: 31732294 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2019.09.017

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study compared the voice outcomes of selected patients with unilateral vocal fold palsy (UVFP) who underwent either nonselective laryngeal reinnervation (LR) or Type 1 thyroplasty (thyroplasty) in a Malaysian tertiary centre using multidimensional voice assessments.

PARTICIPANTS: The study included 16 patients with UVFP who underwent either LR (9 patients) or thyroplasty (7 patients) between 2015 and 2018 who fulfilled the inclusion criteria.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The outcomes were measured subjectively and objectively with: (1) voice handicap index-10 (VHI-10- Malay version); (2) auditory perceptual evaluation using the breathiness component of Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain scale; (3) maximum phonation time (MPT); and (4) acoustic analysis (jitter%, shimmer%, and NHR) using OperaVOXTM. The outcomes were measured at baseline, 6 and 12-months postoperative. The comparison of outcomes between pre and postoperative of each group was evaluated using one-way ANOVA test. Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the outcomes between the two groups.

RESULTS: Comparison of each group at different time points showed significant improvement of VHI-10 and MPT of LR group between baseline and 12 months (P ≤ 0.05) whereas, the improvement in thyroplasty group was observed at all time points (P ≤ 0.05). When comparing between the two groups at 12 months, the VHI-10 and MPT was significantly better in the LR group than thyroplasty group with P = 0.004 and P = 0.001 respectively. Other outcome measures did not reveal significant difference between the two groups.

CONCLUSION: This observational study showed that LR may be better than thyroplasty in improving VHI-10 and MPT in selected patients with UVFP.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.