Acoustic and perceptual evaluation of voice and speech quality - A study of patients with laryngeal cancer treated with laryngectomy vs irradiation

Objective: To compare voice and speech function in patients who underwent l aryngectomy with that of 2 control groups. Design: A cross-sectional study comparing acoustic and temporal variables w ith perceptual evaluations in 3 subject groups. Setting: University hospital in Goteborg, Sweden. Subjects: Two groups of patients with laryngeal carcinoma were examined: 12 male patients who had laryngectomy and were using a tracheoesophageal pros thesis and 12 male patients treated with radical radiotherapy who had a pre served larynx. The third group consisted of 10 normal controls without lary ngeal disease. Main Outcome Measures: Acoustic variables were fundamental frequency, absol ute fundamental frequency perturbation, speech rate, and maximum phonation time. Perceptual evaluation included 15 listeners' perceptual evaluation an d the patients' self-assessment of speech intelligibility, voice quality, a nd speech acceptability. Results: No significant acoustic or temporal differences were found between the laryngectomy and radical radiotherapy groups. There was a significant difference between the patient groups in perceptual evaluation. Both groups of patients differed from normal controls in acoustic and temporal measure s, where the laryngectomy group generally deviated more from the normal con trols than the patient group treated with radiotherapy. There was a weak, b ut significant, correlation between absolute fundamental frequency perturba tion and perceived voice quality. Conclusions: Perceptual evaluations could indicate significant differences between the patients who underwent laryngectomy and irradiated patients, wh ere the acoustic analysis failed to reflect these differences. Both patient groups could be distinguished according to acoustic and temporal measures when compared with normal controls. The acoustic analyses were more suffici ent in voices without severe dysfunction.