A Preliminary Study of Laryngeal Electromyography for Evaluating Swallowing Function of Patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / 听力学及言语疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the clinical values of laryngeal electromyography (LEMG) for evaluating the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS) patients with swallowing disorder .Methods A total of 25 ALS patients with or without complaining of swallowing disorder were recruited for the study .Their right cricothyroid muscles were taken unilaterally with concentric needle electrodes by anterior cervical approach .Each patient was tested with Kub-ota drinking test too .Results Of all the 25 patients ,11 were found abnormal in the right cricothyroid muscle which presented with typical degeneration patterns ,15 cases were found abnormal by Kubota drinking test .The coinci-dence rate of the two methods was 60% ,the poisitive coincidence rate was 32% .The McNemar test showed there was some consistency between the drinking water test and LEMG (P=0 .344) ,and the Kappa coefficient was 0 .219 . Conclusion The cricothyroid muscle electromyography may also be a potential method to evaluate ALS patients since it seemed to offer an evidence of dysphagia related with abnormal sensory function of laryngeal mucosa .But there may be some limitations .