Voice outcome in patients treated for laryngeal cancer: efficacy of voice rehabilitation.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the efficacy of voice rehabilitation regarding acoustically measured voice quality as well as self-perceived function after radiotherapy for laryngeal cancer.

STUDY DESIGN: Prospective intervention study.

METHODS: Twenty male patients irradiated for laryngeal cancer participated in the study. Voice recordings and self-assessment of voice function (hoarseness, vocal fatigue, and vocal loudness) were made one and 6 months after completion of radiotherapy. The recordings were analyzed with the program Praat. Ten of the patients received 10 sessions of structured voice rehabilitations between the recordings and 10 worked as a control group.

RESULTS: Jitter and shimmer improved for both groups. Harmonics-to-noise-ratio and maximum phonation time improved for the patients who received voice rehabilitation while it deteriorated for the control group. The self-assessment questions about vocal fatigue and vocal loudness showed improvement for both groups while hoarseness showed no change.

CONCLUSION: General improvement was seen for both the study group and the control group. Despite the lack of statistical significant difference, there are trends where greater improvement in perturbation and self-assessment measures are noted in the study group. The results suggest positive effects of voice rehabilitation in both voice quality and self-perceived function.