Outcome measurements after oral cancer treatment: speech and speech-related aspects--an overview

Oral cancer and its surgical treatment impair speech quality by an alteration of the vocal tract. Local size and stage of the tumour as well as surgical and adjuvant treatment modalities have an impact on the functional outcome of patients' speech rehabilitation. It was the aim of this overview to specifiy speech and speech-related aspects as well as to delineate measurement methods of speech outcome in patients with oral cancer by a review of the literature.

The review is based on a Medline Search on "speech", "cancer", "oral cancer", "malignoma mouth", "intelligibility", "formant", "ultrasound".

In particular, speech intelligibility is inevitable for the social interaction of patients which is highly correlated with the patient's quality of life. However, speech outcome measurement shows a variety of methods without an international standardisation. Additionally, several co-aspects of speech production have to be considered: tongue mobility, voice production, velopharyngeal closure and neural coordination are important influencing factors. Speech assessment is traditionally performed by perceptual methods on a subjective or semi-subjective base. More objective, technical-based methods of speech evaluation are in development and under research.

It was the aim of this overview to specify speech and speech-related aspects as well as to delineate measurement methods of speech outcome in patients with oral cancer by a review of the current literature.