METHODS AND RESULTS: This innovation involves two lateral skin flaps being sutured into an incision on either side of the lateral wall of the trachea. This results in an elongated, broadened and elliptical tracheostoma, mimicking that of a fish mouth.
CONCLUSION: Benefits of the fish mouth technique include adequate stoma size for respiration, easier clearing of secretions, self-sufficiency without a stent, easier cleaning of a tracheoesophageal voice prosthesis, and stoma occlusion for voice production. The fish mouth technique is easily reproducible and suitable for those with a voice prosthesis.
METHODS: This prospective observational study comprised 34 newly diagnosed unilateral vocal fold paralysis patients undergoing surgical interventions: injection laryngoplasty or medialisation thyroplasty. Voice assessments, including maximum vocal intensity and other acoustic parameters, were performed at baseline and at one and three months post-intervention. Maximum vocal intensity was also repeated within two weeks before any surgical interventions were performed. The results were compared between different time points and between the two intervention groups.
RESULTS: Maximum vocal intensity showed high internal consistency. Statistically significant improvements were seen in maximum vocal intensity, Voice Handicap Index-10 and other acoustic analyses at one and three months post-intervention. A significant moderate negative correlation was demonstrated between maximum vocal intensity and Voice Handicap Index-10, shimmer and jitter. There were no significant differences in voice outcomes between injection laryngoplasty and medialisation thyroplasty patients at any time point.
CONCLUSION: Maximum vocal intensity can be applied as a treatment outcome measure in unilateral vocal fold paralysis patients; it can demonstrate the effectiveness of treatment and moderately correlates with self-reported outcome measures.
OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to translate and validate a Bahasa Malaysia version of SECEL (mSECEL) using a validated framework of transcultural adaptation.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Otorhinolaryngology, Department of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre from February 2019 to May 2020. The mSECEL was produced following a rigorous forward and backward translation. Eighty-three laryngectomees (78 male, five female) using various methods of alaryngeal communication (47 voice prosthesis, 29 electrolarynx, three esophageal speech and four pen and paper), completed the mSECEL and mVHI-10 before head and neck and flexible laryngoscopic examinations. The mSECEL was repeated in 2 weeks via telephone interview or clinic visit. Its reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation. The Pearson product-moment correlation test was used to analyze correlation between the mSECEL and mVHI-10.
RESULTS: The mSECEL questionnaire showed strong internal consistency with the Cronbach alpha of >0.90 for total score, Environmental and Attitude subscale. The test-retest reliability for total mSECEL score was high with the intraclass correlation of 0.97. There was a highly significant positive correlation between the mSECEL total score and mVHI-10 (P < 0.001). Items in the General subscale showed poorer internal consistency with Cronbach alpha ranging 0.55-0.46 and poor correlation with mVHI-10.
CONCLUSIONS: The Bahasa Malaysia version of the SECEL measure is a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate communication perception after laryngectomy. Future studies should consider subscale validation and further abbreviation of its items to make this measure clinically relevant.
DESIGN AND SETTING: Descriptive cross-sectional study in a tertiary center.
PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: The subjects are 274 audio files of voices of patients undergoing thyroid, parathyroid surgeries, and known VCP due to other neck surgeries. Voice assessments were done by three endocrine surgeons (A, B, and C) with 20, 12, and 4 years of surgical experience.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Sensitivity and specificity of surgeon documented voice assessment in patients with underlying VCP. Subjects' acoustic analysis and Voice Handicap Index (VHI-10) were analyzed.
RESULTS: Raters A, B, and C have sensitivity of 63.6%, 78.8%, and 66.7%, respectively. Inter-rater reliability shows substantial agreement (ƙ = 0.67). VHI-10 has sensitivity of 75.8% and strong correlation of 0.707 (p value <0.001) to VCP. Subjects with VCP have notably higher jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonic ratio compared to normal subjects with sensitivity of 74.2%, 71.2%, and 72.7%, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: The results for surgeons documented voice assessment did not reach the desired sensitivity for a screening tool for patients with underlying VCP. Other tools such as VHI-10 and acoustic analysis may not be used as standalone tools in screening patients with underlying VCP. Routine preoperative laryngeal examination may be recommended for all patients undergoing thyroid, parathyroid, or other surgeries that places the laryngeal nerves at risk.
METHODS: CT scans of the neck of two hundred patients were analysed by two groups of raters. For thyrohyoid approach, mean distance from the superior border of the thyroid cartilage to the laryngeal cavity (THd) and mean angle from the superior border of the thyroid cartilage to mid-true cords (THa) were measured. For transthyroid approach, mean distance from mid-thyroid cartilage to mid-true cords (TTd) and Hounsfield unit (HU) at mid-thyroid cartilage (TTc) were measured. For cricothyroid approach, mean distance from the inferior border of the thyroid cartilage to the laryngeal cavity (CTd) and mean angle from the inferior border of the thyroid cartilage to mid-true cords (CTa) were measured.
RESULTS: There were statistically significant differences between males and females for all measurements except for CTa (p 0.05). There was a significant fair positive correlation between age and TTc (p = 0.0002). For all measurements obtained, there were moderate to excellent inter-group consistency and intra-rater reliability.
CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated a significant sex dimorphism that may influence the three TIL approaches except for needle angulation in the cricothyroid approach. The knowledge of laryngeal dimension is important to increase success in TIL procedure.
Methods: 383 snores from 40 participants who complained of snoring were digitally recorded during natural and induced sleep using a level III polysomnography monitor with a built-in microphone. During drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE), the real-time site of upper airway obstruction was assessed, and the sound frequency of snoring was recorded synchronously.
Results: The mean peak of snoring frequency for unilevel palatal, oropharynx and epiglottis obstruction were 522.5, 482.4 and 300.0 Hz, respectively. Most participants showed multilevel obstruction at the palate and oropharynx, in which the mean for bi-peak snoring frequency were 402.90 Hz and 1086.96 Hz, respectively. Severity of OSA was significantly associated with multilevel obstruction.
Conclusions: There was a significant association between the snoring sound frequency and site of unilevel obstruction. Palatal or oropharyngeal obstruction produced sound at mid-frequency range, while the epiglottis produced a low frequency range. Multilevel obstruction documented a bi-peak snoring frequency.
METHODS: The study population consisted of 53 participants, 23 patients with BVFI after endolaryngeal laser posterior cordectomy and 30 healthy volunteers. All of them had body plethysmography (airway resistance, Raw), spirometry (ratio of forced expiratory flow at 50% to forced inspiratory flow at 50%, FEF50/FIF50 and peak inspiratory flow, PIF), 6 min-walking-test (6MWT) and Medical Research Council (MRC) dyspnea scale measurements. The tests were repeated and reliability was evaluated using intraclass correlation (ICC) and Spearman correlation.
RESULTS: The reliability of Raw was high with ICC of 0.92, comparable to the spirometry measurements: FEF50/FIF50(ICC = 0.72) and PIF (ICC = 0.97). The mean of Raw was significantly higher in patient group. A strong significant correlation between Raw and MRC dyspnea scale (r = 0.79; p<0.05) and a moderate negative correlation between Raw and 6MWT (r = 0.4; p<0.05) was demonstrated.
CONCLUSION: Body plethysmography (Raw) is a reliable tool in objective measurement of upper airway resistance that reflects the patient's perception of breathlessness. A larger number of participants are necessary to confirm this finding.
METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study in which 77 patients (18 males, 59 females, mean age of 48) with unilateral VFP with an opposite normal mobile vocal fold underwent LEMG with a standardized protocol. Koufman gradings and MT and MA were used for the qualitative and quantitative evaluations. Mann-Whitney U test was performed to compare the median of the turns and amplitudes between the opposite normal mobile vocal fold and the paralyzed side. A linear-scale graphical "cloud" of the normal TA-LCA muscle complex was generated using logarithmic regression analysis. The qualitative and quantitative parameters were analyzed using multiple analysis of variance and Kruskall-Wallis test. Post-hoc analysis was performed to further determine the differences of the significance between both parameters. The correlation between the qualitative and quantitative parameters was analyzed using Spearman correlation.
RESULTS: The MT and MA were significantly higher for the normal TA-LCA muscle complex than the paralyzed side (582 vs. 336; 412 vs. 296, respectively) and the median of the turns and amplitudes were significantly lower in the paralyzed side with p-values <0.001. A significant difference was observed between the Koufman grading and the combination of MT and MA [F (8,144) = 73.254] and between the Koufman grading and MT and MA individually [H (4, 72) = 18.3 and H (4, 72) =33.4], in which both had p-values <0.001. A moderate negative linear relationship was seen between the Koufman grading and MT and MA. On further analysis, it was revealed that only certain pairs of Koufman grading were statistical significant.
CONCLUSIONS: This study was the first to present the quantitative normative values and "cloud" of the TA-LCA muscle complex using the opposite normal mobile vocal fold in patients with unilateral VFP in which it is comparable to healthy controls. We concluded that quantitative LEMG supports the qualitative Koufman grading method however it cannot be used independently to determine the severity of neuropathy.
DESIGN: A secondary data analysis of the 2023 Registry of Occupational Disease Screening (RODS) was performed. The RODS survey tool, which included the Nordic Occupational Skin Questionnaire, a symptoms checklist and items on work-relatedness, was used to screen for OSDs. Logistic regression analyses were performed to identify associated factors.
SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Restaurant workers (n=300) registered in RODS from February 2023 to April 2023, aged 18 years and above and working in restaurants across Selangor, Melaka and Pahang for more than 1 year, were included in the study, whereas workers who had pre-existing skin diseases were excluded.
RESULTS: The prevalence of suspected OSDs among study participants was 12.3%. Higher odds of suspected OSDs among study participants were observed among those exposed to wet work (adjusted OR (AOR) 22.74, 95% CI 9.63 to 53.68) and moderate to high job stress levels (AOR 4.33, 95% CI 1.80 to 10.43).
CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that OSDs are a significant occupational health problem among restaurant workers. Interventions targeting job content and wet work may be vital in reducing OSDs among this group of workers.
METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This is a 3-year project in which a survey of 100 000 workers from all 13 states in Malaysia will be conducted using a web-based screening tool that is comprised of two parts: occupational disease screening tool and hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control method. Data will be collected using a multistage stratified sampling method from 500 companies, including seven critical industrial sectors. The independent variables will be sociodemographic characteristics, comorbidities, previous medical history, high-risk behaviour and workplace profile. The dependent variable will be the types of occupational diseases (noise-induced hearing loss, respiratory, musculoskeletal, neurotoxic, skin and mental disorders). Subsequently, suggestions of referral for medium and high-risk workers to occupational health clinics will be attained. The approved occupational health service clinics/providers will make a confirmatory diagnosis of each case as deemed necessary. Subsequently, a walk-through survey to identify workplace hazards and recommend workplace improvement measures to prevent these occupational diseases will be achieved. Both descriptive and inferential statistics will be used in this study. Simple and adjusted binary regression will be used to find the determinants of occupational diseases.
ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study has been approved by the MARA University of Technology Research Ethics Board. Informed, written consent will be obtained from all study participants. Findings will be disseminated to the Department of Occupational Health and Safety, involved industries, and through peer-reviewed publications.