doiSerbia

Subjective acoustic analysis of tumor’s dysphonia using 'rbh' scale

Mitrović Slobodan (Fonijatrijski odsek, Klinika za bolesti uha grla i nosa, Kliničkog centra Novi Sad)

The goal of psycho acoustic or subjective voice analysis, in a phoniater's everyday work, is to describe a subjective experience based on the physical parameters created in the process of phonation. The work was a clinical prospective study and the sample consisted of 80 people of both sexes, 40 people with benign and pseudo tumors of vocal cords and 40 people with malign tumors of vocal cords. All the patients were otorinolaringologically and phoniatrically examined. The subjective acoustic analysis was done with the patients pronouncing numbers from 1 to 10 in the comfortable zone. Afterwards, the quality of the voices was estimated in RBH scale. The subjective acoustic analysis found roughness in the voices of 87,50% patients in the first group and the most frequent value was Mod=3 ( intense roughness), 62,50% patients. Hoarseness was present in 90,00 % cases , with largest value Mod=2 (moderate hoarseness), 55,00% patients. In the second group, roughness existed in the voices of 70,00% patients, most often intense one (Mod=3), 30,00% patients. Hoarseness existed in 95,00% cases, 45,00% with moderate (Mod=2) and 35,00% with intense one. T test showed that there is a statistically significant difference between the strength of the roughness determined by the subjective acoustic analysis in the first and the second group, with p<0,01. The difference between the strength of the hoarseness in the first and the second group is also statistically significant, with p<0,01. All the growths on vocal cords irrespective of their nature change the characteristics of the voice, most of all its clearness. In cases of vocal cords tumors, by the subjective acoustic analysis, i.e. the perception of the psycho physiological characteristics of voice, a human ear can register pathological phenomena of the voice but cannot determine the character of the growth on the vocal cords.

Keywords: subjective acoustic analysis, dysphonia, tumor, vocal cords