A Descriptive Study of Aetiology of Dysphonia in A Voice Clinic

Abstract

Background: Dysphonia is the alteration in normal voice quality due to structural and/or functional causes.1 It can be due to organic pathology that can be a benign cause like vocal nodule or malignancy like Carcinoma glottis. It may also be due to functional causes like muscle tension dysphonia, puberphonia or neurological causes like unilateral vocal cord palsy and spasmodic dysphonia.
Method: This retrospective descriptive study was conducted in all patients who presented with dysphonia in a voice clinic at PRS hospital Thiruvananthapuram in the year 2022. Flexible fibreoptic laryngoscopic examination often supplemented by stroboscopy/ NBI was done in all these patients. The age, sex, and diagnosis of all these patients who underwent laryngoscopic examination for dysphonia were analysed in this study.
Results: Majority of the patients are in the 4th to 7th decade and the most affected age group was 60-69 followed by 40-49. The male: female ratio was around 1.41: 1. Being a tertiary care voice clinic, unilateral vocal cord palsy was found to be the most common cause of hoarseness followed by type I muscle tension dysphonia and spasmodic dysphonia.
Conclusion: Dysphonia can occur due to a variety of causes ranging from unilateral vocal cord palsy to adductor spasmodic dysphonia and from sulcus vocalis to submucous cleft palate. A thorough history taking and clinical evaluation supplemented by endoscopic evaluation with the help of chip on tip flexible laryngoscopy is a must for accurate diagnosis of the aetiology of dysphonia.