gms | German Medical Science

Background: The growing incidence of various voice disorders (from 6% to 49%) makes the problem of improving the quality and availability of diagnosis of voice disorders particularly relevant. In recent years, there has been a persistent tendency to analyze the functional state of ENT organs. Both subjective and objective research methods are used. There is currently no research base on objective acoustic analysis of the voice of patients with chronic sinusitis without polyps. In the modern literature, there are only a few studies devoted to the study of the vocal apparatus in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with polyps.

Materials and methods: The study involved 55 people aged from 19 to 76 years (35 patients with chronic rhinosinusitis without polyps and 20 healthy people). All study participants did not indicate voice problems. Endoscopic visual examination of the larynx revealed no pathological changes in the larynx. The average age of patients and healthy individuals was 44 years (confidence interval with a probability of 0.95 (39.7; 48.3). An acoustic analysis of the voice was carried out using the „LingWaves“ Phonetogramm 2.5., which included recording of the singing and speech profile.

Results: Statistical processing of the data did not reveal differences in the data by gender and age. Of all the analyzed objective indicators of vocal function, only a significant decrease in the time of maximum phonation was found in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis 13.45 {12.18; 14.71} p. compared to healthy people 15.62 {13.95; 17.28} s, (p=0.038).

Conclusion: The results of the study showed that patients with chronic rhinosinusitis had impaired vocal function in the form of a decrease in the time of maximum phonation. The results of our study are important in assessing the rehabilitation potential of patients with chronic inflammation of the paranasal sinuses, especially in people of voice-speech professions.