Allergic laryngitis as a cause of dysphonia: a preliminary report

To investigate the relationship between air-borne allergen exposure and Voice Handicap Index scores in patients seeking medical treatment for rhinitis.

As we had previously identified a higher-than-expected incidence of allergy in patients presenting to a voice clinic, we undertook a prospective audit of patients without specific voice-related complaints presenting to a rhinology clinic to see if these patients might have unrecognized vocal dysfunction. To this end 70 consecutive patients with no pre-reported voice-related symptoms presenting to a teaching hospital rhinology clinic underwent skin prick testing to common air-borne allergens and completed the Voice Handicap Index (VHI) questionnaire. Discriminant performances in the Voice Handicap Index and its individual domains and questions were determined using analysis of variance. An allergy-specific subset of the VHI was constructed and tested using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) statistics.

There were 30 males and 40 females. Mean age was 36 ± 12 years. Dust mite (83%), house dust mite (55%), and grass pollen (40%) were the commonest allergens, and 23 patients did not react to common allergens. Mean VHI score was 23.7 ± 20.1 in patients with ≥ 4 allergens, 10.8 ± 21.3 in patients with fewer than 4 allergies, and 7.8 ± 8.5 in non-allergics (P = 0.044; analysis of variance). Nine VHI questions best discriminated between allergic and non-allergic patients (P < 0.05), and the combined VHI-9 score had a ROC area under the curve of 0.85.

Patients with more air-borne allergies have a higher incidence of undiagnosed vocal dysfunction, as determined by the raised Voice Handicap Index score, than those with fewer or no such allergies. As noted, earlier work has shown that, conversely, patients with vocal dysfunction have a high incidence of undiagnosed allergy.