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Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology 125(4)
recovery of a (iatrogenic/traumatic) UVP. It was shown that
the chance of recovery of UVP was over 90% when pMW
were present at diagnosis in patients with a UVP, whereas
only in 10% if not. Laryngostroboscopy is always done rou-
tinely in patients with UVP by an experienced phoniatrician
or laryngologist. It is a noninvasive procedure that takes
only a few minutes.
A disadvantage of laryngostrobsocopy is the fact that in
our experience, reliable stroboscopic signals are only
obtained in patients with the paralyzed vocal fold close to
midline during phonation (glottis gap
≤
3 mm during pho-
nation). This is the reason why only 61 out of 100 patients
could be analysed in a study by Harries and Morrison.
9
In
a recent study with 400 patients with a vocal fold paralysis,
it was shown that microstroboscopy was technically feasi-
ble in 76% of the patients because the vocal folds could get
into contact (couple).
1
These data show that a routinely
performed microlarygostroboscopy is a very good, nonin-
vasive alternative to EMG in patents with UVP and—in
addition—much better tolerated and less expensive.
Conclusion
The authors conclude that positive mucosal waves in
microstroboscopy are a simple predictor for recovery of
(iatrogenic/traumatic) UVP and should be used in routinely
for diagnosis and prognosis
Acknowledgment
We thank John Bennett, FRCS, for critically reading this
manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Table 2.
Recovery of Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis (UVP) Dependent on Mucosal Wave (MW) in Iatrogenic/Traumatic UVP.
UVP
Positive MW
Negative MW
Total
Recovery
66 (42 thyroid hypertrophy, 5 thyroid carcinoma, 12
cardiac/carotid surgery, 7 spine surgery)
1 (1 thyroid hypertrophy)
67
No recovery
7 (6 struma, 1 cardiac/carotds surgery)
8 (7 thyroid hypertrophy, 1
cardiac/carotid surgery)
15
Total
73
9
82
Table 3.
Recovery of Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis (UVP)
Dependent on Mucosal Wave (MW) in Malignancy-Associated
UVP.
UVP
Positive
MW Negative MW Total
Recovery
0
1 (1 thyroid carcinoma)
1
No recovery
0
9 (7 thyroid carcinoma, 2
bronchial carcinoma)
9
Total
0
10
10
Table 4.
Recovery of Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis (UVP)
Dependent on Mucosal Wave (MW) in Idiopathic UVP.
UVP
Positive MW Negative MW Total
Recovery
7
0
7
No recovery
0
1
1
Total
7
1
8
42