[Assessment of speech quality in patients with resected larynx]

The organ salving treatment of laryngeal neoplasms including their surgical resection at one of the stages was given to 25 patients. They were further followed up for the assessment of vocal function. Analysis of speech was performed by a group of 5 auditors. They counted how many times each patient heard a consonant as a sonant and vice versa. Based on the analysis of mistakes, the patients were divided into the following three groups: group 1 (many mistakes), group 2 (moderate number of mistakes), an group 3 (practically no mistakes). The most common mistake was devocalization of voiced sounds. Postoperative analysis of speech quality characteristics revealed their dependence on the extent of surgical intervention, the presence of tracheostoma, the type of plastic correction, and the dose of radiation therapy. It was shown that extensive and combined frontal-lateral resection leads to voice impairment. Tracheostoma also have negative effect on speech discrimination.