Effects of type 3 thyroplasty on voice quality outcomes in puberphonia

ABSTRACT

@#p style=text-align justify;strongOBJECTIVES:/strong To assess effects of type 3 thyroplasty on outcomes of voice quality in puberphonia.METHODS:br /Design:/strong Prospective cohortbr /strongSetting:/strong Tertiary Referral Hospitalbr /strongParticipants:/strong Six patients with puberphonia who failed voice therapy, aged 16-25 years, who consulted at the ENT Outpatient department between September 2010 and September 2012, underwent type 3 thyroplasty.Pre-operative and 6-month post-operative voice analysis by voice recordings, Voice Handicap Index (VHI), GRBAS score and real time acoustic analysis (perturbation) using Dr Speech software (University version 4.0, Voice Tech Corporation, USA [Tiger Electronics] with habitual fundamental frequency (FO), jitter % and shimmer % as parameters were performed.Results: Mean pre-operative VHI and GRBAS scores were 53 and 75.67, respectively, whereas post-operative scores were 29 and 25.00, respectively. (P-value for VHI was 0.004 and that of GRBAS was 0.00). On acoustic analysis, mean pre-operative habitual fundamental frequency (FO), jitter % and shimmer % was 245.82 Hz, 0.21 and 2.34, respectively, whereas post-operative mean was 140.78 Hz (P=0.00), 0.19 (P=0.04) and 1.52 (P=0.00), respectively.Conclusion: The mainstay of treatment of puberphonia is voice therapy. Thyroplasty provides a suitable management option in those cases who fail to respond by voice therapy./p