Morphological and Acoustic Change of Autologous Fat Injection for Unilateral Vocal Cord Paralysis / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Glottic incompetence resulting from the unilateral vocal cord paralysis can be improved by medialization of the paralyzed vocal cord. Recently, it has been thought that the autologous fat could be used as a good material for augmenting paralytic vocal cord. There were reports about long-term follow-up results concerning voluminous, histological and acoustic changes after autologous fat injection. Authors observed periodically the morphological and acoustic changes of autologous fat deposits which were injected into iatrogenically paralyzed vocal cord. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eight mongrel dogs were injected with autologous fat into the iatrogenically paralyzed vocal cords, and were sacrificed at 1, 3, 6 months after the fat injection and observed histological and acoustic changes. RESULTS: The bulk of the fat graft lasted at least 3 months in this experiment. There were minimal evidence of inflammatoy changes, foreign body reaction and improvement of voice quality was noted in spectrography. CONCLUSION: The autologous fat injection appears to be a relatively safe and effective method for medializing the paralyzed vocal cord.