[The voice prosthesis. An underutilized procedure in rehabilitation?]

In the last 10 years nearly 4450 patients who had undergone laryngectomy have attended speech therapy as part of a resident rehabilitation programme. Most of them mastered the technique of esophageal speech. The most surprising finding was that only 1.5% achieved speech by way of a tracheo-esophageal fistula or voice prosthesis, whereas this was true of 15% of such patients seen in the first 3 months of 1993.