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Surgery for Vocal Cord Paralysis
This study is currently recruiting patients.
Sponsored by: | National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) |
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Information provided by: | National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) |
Purpose
Unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) is caused by injury to the nerve to the affected vocal fold. The injury to the vocal fold makes the affected person's voice sound "breathy". Voice therapy is usually tried first, and, if unsuccessful, surgical treatment is considered. The standard surgical treatment is called vocal fold medialization and aims to bring the injured cord to the midline. An alternative surgical treatment, vocal fold reinnervation, aims to bring a new nerve supply to the injured vocal fold. The reinnervation operation, which has some potential advantages over the medialization operation also requires several months for final results to be gained. The goal of this multicenter, randomized clinical trial is to see which of the two surgical treatments produces a better outcome.
In order to participate in this study patients with UVFP must meet all entry criteria and must be released from voice therapy by a speech-language pathologist. Information collected for the study (pre-surgery, and at 6 and 12 months after surgery) includes voice recordings, movies made of vocal fold function, airflow and pressure measurements of the voicebox, and an outcomes questionnaire.
Condition | Treatment or Intervention | Phase |
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unilateral vocal fold paralysis Unilateral Vocal Cord Paralysis |
Procedure: vocal fold medialization Procedure: vocal fold reinnervation |
Phase III |
MedlinePlus related topics: Neurologic Diseases; Paralysis; Respiratory Diseases
Study Type: Interventional
Study Design: Treatment, Randomized, Active Control, Parallel Assignment, Efficacy Study
Official Title: Medialization vs Reinnervation for Vocal Cord Paralysis
Expected Total Enrollment: 300
Study start: October 2002;
Study completion: March 2007
Unilateral vocal fold paralysis (UVFP) is caused by injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Patients with UVFP may have significant impairment of vocal fold function, including a breathy paralytic dysphonia. There are several available approaches for the treatment of this condition. Vocal fold medialization is currently used by most otolaryngologists and is probably the standard of care for treating UVFP. An alternative approach is laryngeal reinnervation, which has a number of potential advantages over medialization but which requires several months before a final result is achieved. The primary goal of this multicenter, randomized clinical trial is to determine which approach produces a better outcome.
Patients with UVFP meeting all inclusion criteria and released from therapy by a speech-language pathologist will be randomized into either the medialization arm or the reinnervation arm. The data collection protocol consists of voice recordings, aerodynamic measurements, electroglottography, videostroboscopy, and a clinical outcomes questionnaire collected pre-treatment and at 6 and 12 months post-treatment.
Eligibility
Ages Eligible for Study: 18 Years and above, Genders Eligible for Study: Both
Criteria
Inclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria
Location and Contact Information
More Information
U.S. National Library of Medicine, Contact NLM Customer Service | ||||||||||||||
National Institutes of Health, Department of Health & Human Services | ||||||||||||||
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