[Voice quality assessment via acoustic and spectrographic analysis in patients who had endolaryngeal microsurgery]

In this study, changes in quality of voice in patients who underwent endolaryngeal microsurgery were assessed by objective voice analyses.

Thirty patients (17 females, 13 males; mean age 34.3+/-11.5 years; range 17 to 65 years), who underwent endolaryngeal microsurgery because of benign vocal cord pathology and 25 people (12 females, 13 males; mean age 28.7+/-6.6 years; range 22 to 50 years), without laryngeal pathology were included in this study. Voice records, which were taken from the patients pre- and postoperatively, and also from the control group, were analyzed acoustically and spectrographically. Cool-Edit software was used for voice recording, and Praat software was used for voice analysis. Parameters, which were obtained in the study, were compared statistically.

When pre- and postoperative acoustic analysis results were compared, it was found out that there was significant difference in all parameters except fundamental frequency. While S/Z ratio, and jitter and shimmer values were significantly decreased postoperatively, maximum phonation time, harmonic/noise ratio, and intensity values were significantly increased. No important changes were detected in fundamental frequency value. Postoperative and control group findings were not significantly different. At long term average spectrum analysis of the phonetically balanced read passage records, postoperative amplitude value was increased significantly, compared to preoperative values.

Acoustic and spectrographic voice analyses are objective methods which can be used to assess effects of endolaryngeal microsurgery on quality of voice.