Unilateral vocal fold paralysis resulting in glottic incompetence can cause impairment of laryngeal functions, including airway protection and phonation. The objective of this study is to present an easy new technique for harvesting and injection of abdominal fat into the vocal fold for patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis. This is a retrospective study of patients carried out on 16 patients suffering from unilateral vocal fold paralysis resulting from different etiologies. All patients were subjected to the protocol of voice assessment pre- and postoperatively. All patients were subjected to fat injection of the paralyzed vocal fold. There was a statistically significant difference between the pre- and postoperative grade of voice parameters. Vocal fold injection using fat medializes a paralyzed vocal fold by increasing vocal fold volume. Fat injections are safe and easily mastered; and in the absence of the standard settings for fat harvesting and injection, it could be performed with minimal equipment that are readily available in any operating room.
Objective
Platelet-rich plasma has gained interest over the two last decades, mainly because of its role in regenerative medicine. This work aimed to assess the role of intra-operative local application of platelet-rich plasma gel in the improvement of quality of voice after microlaryngeal surgery.
Method
This was a prospective comparative study that included 40 patients undergoing microlaryngeal surgery for benign vocal fold lesions. There were two groups divided equally into study group A and control group B. The assessment of voice was performed by videostroboscopy and acoustic analysis pre-operatively and at two weeks and one and three months post-operatively.
Results
The data demonstrated that all the stroboscopic and acoustic parameters showed significant improvement in both groups. Group A showed significant improvement regarding acoustic parameters at the third post-operative follow up when compared with group B.
Conclusion
Platelet-rich plasma has a beneficial effect on voice quality following microlaryngeal surgery based in particular on acoustic parameters.
Background
Prosody is an important acoustic and linguistic component of speech that greatly contributes to speech intelligibility. Speech of hearing-impaired children shows various deviations from their normal-hearing counterparts due to complex physiological mechanisms.
Methods
Acoustic analysis of the prosodic production of hearing-impaired, cochlear-implanted, Egyptian children, and comparing them to a normal group of normal-hearing peers, using objective measures. Cases group included 30 hearing-impaired verbal children from the age of 6 to 10 years using cochlear implant devices. The controls group included 30 normal-hearing children within the same age range. Recording and analysis of both groups’ speech samples were done using real-time pitch software, generic syllabic rate, and intonation stimulability software.
Results
Significant differences were found between the two studied groups where decreased pitch range, increased loudness variability, increased pause duration, and decreased syllabic rate were found in hearing-impaired children.
Conclusion
Prosodic differences between hearing-impaired children with cochlear implants and normal-hearing children could be measured objectively giving a numeric profile that could be used as a measure to monitor the progress of their speech with therapy.
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