RESUMO
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Reinke's edema is characterized by the swelling of the vocal folds, which is bilateral, and is found superficial to the vocal ligament, Reinke's space. However, the etiology of Reinke's edema is not well understood, and voice characteristics are still controvertial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical characteristics of Reinke's edema, and to assess the voice qualities in patients with Reinke's edema before and after a laryngomicrosurgery. Furthermore, this study also determined which parameters were most associated with the improvement of postoperative voice quality in Reinke's edema. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: The clinical records from 61 patients with Reinke's edema were reviewed and telephone questionnaires were carried out about smoking, laryngopharyngeal reflux, voice abuse, and allergy. All the patients were classified according to the stroboscopic findings (Yonekawa's classification). The voice analysis of 61 patients with Reinke's edema were performed and compared with 30 normal controls. Also, the voice analysis of 23 patients, who underwent laryngomicrosurgery, was carried out 2 months after surgery. RESULTS: Smoking, voice abuse and laryngopharyngeal reflux may play important roles in developing Reinke's edema. There were 26, 22, and 13 patients identified as Yonekawa types I, II, and III, respectively. The preoperative voice analysis of 61 patients showed decreased FxM (mean fundamental frequency), and increased subglottic pressure. Furthermore, FxSD (fundamental frequency standard deviation), QxM (mean closed quotient), and QxSD (closed quotient standard deviation) were all higher for the patients than the normal group. The postoperative results showed an increase in the FxM and an improvement in the MFR (mean flow rate), Psub (subglottic pressure), shimmer, and HNR (harmonics to noise ratio). The correlation analysis showed that jitter, HNR, QxM, and CFx (% irregularity of frequency) were the parameters, showing the best correlation with improvement in the postoperative voice quality. CONCLUSION: The fundamental frequency was approximated to normal ranges, and stabilizing of vocal fold vibration, and the improvement of vocal efficiency was also found 2 months after layngomicrosurgery. The parameters which represented voice quality by correlation analysis after surgery were jitter, HNR, QxM, and CFx.