Objective aerodynamic and acoustic measurement of voice improvement after phonosurgery

Abstract

Hypothesis: Objective analysis of the outcome of phonosurgery is needed to allow comparison of different surgical techniques or indications, or both. We tried to demonstrate that measurement of mean oral airflow during the production of a sustained vowel could be used in combination with acoustic measurements such as jitter or shimmer for assessment of voice improvement after phonosurgery.

Study design: This prospective study included 27 consecutive patients who underwent phonosurgery during a 3-month period.

Method: Perceptual analysis served as the "gold standard." Objective measurements (oral airflow, jitter, shimmer) on the most stable portion of a sustained vowel /a/ were made using the EVA system (SQ-Lab, Aix-en-Provence, France).

Results: Oral airflow was significantly greater in patients with poor perceptual results than in patients with good perceptual results. Jitter and shimmer were not significantly different because of the dispersion of the values. Discriminant factorial analysis showed that a combination of jitter, shimmer, and oral airflow was able to identify patients with good or poor perceptual results in 77% of cases.

Conclusions: Oral airflow allows simple, quick, and reliable assessment of the outcome of phonosurgery and can be used in everyday clinical practice.