Voice Surgery
What is hoarseness?
The act of oral communication, which marks the uniqueness of humanity and which appears so simple, when dissected, involves hundreds of muscles and every level of cognition. It crosses the disciplines of psychology, linguistics, speech pathology, audiology, education, dentistry, anatomy, physiology, neurology and medicine.
Central to the act of oral communication is the larynx. Accordingly , it is not surprising that the larynx has been called the “ barometer of well being” and that diagnosis of laryngeal disorders is complex and depends not only on integration of knowledge across disciplines, but also on careful observation both of structure and function of the larynx and of the whole patient presenting with the laryngeal problem.
Hoarseness is defined as any change in voice. It reflects any abnormality of normal phonation. The various common disorders which leads to change in voice are benign vocal cord lesions ( vocal nodule, vocal polyps, intracordal cysts ), vocal cord paralysis, cancer of the larynx.
Vocal Nodule
Intracordal Cyst
Vocal Polyp
What is Voice Surgery?
There are various surgeries performed on vocal cords depending on the disorder.
Microlaryngeal Surgery (MLS)
It is an endoscopic camera assisted surgery performed for lesions involving the vocal cord such as nodules/polyps in which the masses are removed from the vocal cord under a high definition camera vision so as to preserve the normal structure of the vocal cord.
Thyroplasty
Type 1
The most common type of thyroplasty done is called as Medialisation thyroplasty or Type 1 Thyroplasty which is done in case of vocal cord paralysis. It is done by placing a silicon or titanium implant in the thyroid cartilage so as to push the paralyzed vocal cord inside so as to improve the patient’s voice.
Injection Laryngoplasty
Medialisation of vocal cord can also be performed by using injection laryngoplasty in which fat or collagen are injected lateral to the vocal cord using a special injection laryngeal needle under endoscopic camera vision.
Type 3
Type 3 thyroplasty is done for cases of puberphonia (males having female voice) in which vocal cord is relaxed so as to change the female shrill voice into male pattern voice.