Speech evaluation and swallowing ability after intra-oral cancer

In this study, four methods of postoperative speech evaluation are compared for 19 persons with oral cancers who have undergone oral surgery and/or radiotherapy. The Munich Intelligibility Profile was used for intelligibility testing and semiquantitative scoring by novice listeners. Expert ratings were done on the Therapy Outcome Measure (TOM) Phonological Disability form. For self-evaluation, the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the Head and Neck module was used. Swallowing function was scored on the TOM Dysphagia form. There was a high intercorrelation between the results of subjective speech evaluation by experts and non-experts and the intelligibility test, but no correlation with any of these methods could be shown for the self-evaluation by the participants. Voice quality seemed to have an influence on non-expert scores. Swallowing was a more severe problem for our group than speech impairment.