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Acoustic and Perceptual Evaluation of Voice and Speech Quality
A Study of Patients With Laryngeal Cancer Treated With Laryngectomy vs Irradiation
Caterina Finizia, MD, PhD;
Hans Dotevall, MD;
Elisabet Lundström;
Jörgen Lindström, MD, PhD
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1999;125:157-163.
Objective To compare voice and speech function in patients who underwent laryngectomy with that of 2 control groups.
Design A cross-sectional study comparing acoustic and temporal variables with perceptual evaluations in 3 subject groups.
Setting University hospital in Göteborg, Sweden.
Subjects Two groups of patients with laryngeal carcinoma were examined: 12 male patients who had laryngectomy and were using a tracheoesophageal prosthesis and 12 male patients treated with radical radiotherapy who had a preserved larynx. The third group consisted of 10 normal controls without laryngeal disease.
Main Outcome Measures Acoustic variables were fundamental frequency, absolute fundamental frequency perturbation, speech rate, and maximum phonation time. Perceptual evaluation included 15 listeners' perceptual evaluation and the patients' self-assessment of speech intelligibility, voice quality, and speech acceptability.
Results No significant acoustic or temporal differences were found between the laryngectomy and radical radiotherapy groups. There was a significant difference between the patient groups in perceptual evaluation. Both groups of patients differed from normal controls in acoustic and temporal measures, where the laryngectomy group generally deviated more from the normal controls than the patient group treated with radiotherapy. There was a weak, but significant, correlation between absolute fundamental frequency perturbation and perceived voice quality.
Conclusions Perceptual evaluations could indicate significant differences between the patients who underwent laryngectomy and irradiated patients, where the acoustic analysis failed to reflect these differences. Both patient groups could be distinguished according to acoustic and temporal measures when compared with normal controls. The acoustic analyses were more sufficient in voices without severe dysfunction.
From the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden (Drs Finizia, Dotevall, and Lindström); and Department of Phoniatrics, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden (Ms Lundström).
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES
Assessment of Irregular Voices After Total and Laser Surgical Partial Laryngectomy
Olthoff et al.
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2003;129:994-999.
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