Stroboscopic videolaryngoscopy: a comparison of fiberscopic and telescopic documentation

The clinical value of stroboscopic videolaryngoscopy (SVL) for the evaluation of laryngeal disorders has been emphasized. Some investigators advocate the use of a flexible fiberscope, while others recommend the use of a rigid telescope for SVL. In order to determine which procedure is more useful for clinical diagnosis, the senior author (E.Y.) performed both fiberscopic and telescopic SVL on 120 consecutive patients who complained of hoarseness. Equipment used included the Olympus ENF-P3 fiberscope, the Nagashima SFT-1 rigid telescope, the Nagashima LS-3A laryngostroboscope, and color video cameras. Our study indicated that stroboscopic images produced by telescopic SVL were superior to those from fiberscopic SVL in the majority of cases. The purpose of this paper is to compare fiberscopic and telescopic SVL, to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of fiberscopic and telescopic SVL, and to present the authors' recommendations.