ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To analyze pre to posttreatment voice changes regarding the type of reflux in patients with acid, weakly acid or alkaline laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). METHODS: Patients with LPR, diagnosed using hypopharyngeal-esophageal multichannel intraluminal impedance pH-monitoring (HEMII-pH), were prospectively recruited from three University Hospitals. Patients were treated with a combination of diet, proton pump inhibitors, magaldrate and alginate for 3 months. The following clinical and voice quality outcomes were studied pre to posttreatment according to the type of reflux (acid, weakly acid, nonacid): HEMII-pH, gastrointestinal endoscopy features, reflux symptom score (RSS), reflux sign assessment (RSA), voice handicap index (VHI), perceptual voice assessment (grade of dysphonia and roughness), aerodynamic and acoustic measurements. RESULTS: From December 2018 to March 2021, 160 patients completed the evaluations, accounting for 60 acid, 52 weakly acid, and 48 alkaline cases of LPR. There were no baseline differences in clinical and voice quality outcomes between groups. RSS and RSA significantly improved from pre to posttreatment in the entire cohort and in all patient groups. VHI, dysphonia and roughness, maximum phonation time, Jitter, Shimmer and noise to harmonic ratio significantly improved from pre to posttreatment. Individuals with alkaline reflux reported better voice quality improvements as compared to acid and weakly acid reflux patients. CONCLUSION: Patients with acid and alkaline reflux reported better posttreatment voice quality outcomes as compared to weakly acid reflux patients. Future basic science and clinical studies are needed to better understand the histological changes of the vocal folds due to reflux of varying pH types and gastroduodenal enzyme content.
ABSTRACT
Background: The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of early administration of oral corticosteroids (OC) or nasal corticosteroids (NC) as an add-on to olfactory training (OT) versus OT alone in patients with olfactory dysfunction (OD) related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Methods: Patients with a positive diagnosis of COVID-19 and OD were prospectively recruited from March 22 to December 15, 2020 from 4 European hospitals. Patients had confirmed OD on psychophysical testing. All patients undertook OT, with add-on 10 days of OC (group 1: OC + OT), or 1 month of NC (group 2: NC + OT) or olfactory training alone (group 3: OT). Olfactory evaluations (Sniffin'Sticks tests) were carried out at the time of inclusion, 1 and 2 months after the start of the therapeutic course. Results: A total of 152 hyposmic or anosmic patients completed the study. Group 1, 2 and 3 included 59, 22 and 71 patients, respectively and all patient groups were comparable regarding baseline Sniffin'Sticks tests. The median Sniffin'Sticks test values significantly improved from pre- to post-intervention in all groups. The increase of Sniffin'Sticks test values was higher in group 1 (OC + OT) compared with groups 2 and 3 (p < 0.001) at one month after treatment but did not remain so at 2 months. Groups 1, 2 and 3, respectively, presented parosmia in 20/71 (28.2%), 9/22 (40.9%) and 42/71 (59.2%) patients. This difference was statistically significant between group 1 and 3 (p < 0.001). There were no patients with a worsening of the disease or an increase of the severity of the COVID-19 symptoms. Conclusions: The use of OCs in patients with OD related to mild COVID-19 is generally well-tolerated without any case of deterioration of symptoms. OC is associated with greater improvement in psychophysical olfactory evaluations at 1-month post-treatment but there was no difference at 2 months. Parosmia may be reduced following treatment with OC and NC. On the basis of these preliminary results, it is possible to state that considering the 2 months efficacy of OC and NC with respect to the OT alone and the risk-benefit ratio, the benefit to start a specific treatment of COVID-19 related OD cannot be demonstrated and there is a need for a randomised controlled trial to assess this further.
