The effect of diagnosis delay on the prognosis of oral cancer

Abstract

of therapy/no intervention, and again after another 6 to 8 weeks. Analysis was conducted using SPSS(X). Results: Voice therapy improved self-rated (F = 12.2, P = 0.001), and expert-rated voice quality (F = 17.5, P < 0.001). Therapy also improved one acoustic analysis parameter-shimmer (amplitude perturbation: F = 5.9, P < 0.01); however, this effect was not sustained at follow-up. There were no differences between the groups in psychological distress or quality of life over time. Conclusion: (1) Voice therapy for dysphonia is an effective treatment in terms of subjective reports. (2) Most objective acoustic parameters showed poor correlation with global reports of voice quality. (3) Voice therapy had surprisingly little impact on psychological distress or general health status.