Videofluoroscopic kinesiologic analysis of swallowing: defining a standard plane.
OBJECTIVE
The Videofluorographic Swallowing Study (VFSS) has become the routine method for assessing swallowing dysfunction and accordingly, much research has been conducted on this procedure. However, due to a lack of standardization of the method of analysis of VFSS, it is often difficult to compare the results of such studies. Therefore, we conducted a comparative study of VFSS's spatial measurement using different standard planes used in the past study and Camper's plane and examined which plane was the most preferable.


METHODS
VFSS was performed on 20 healthy young volunteers (26.9 +/- 3 years) and 9 healthy elderly (77.3 +/- 3 years). Each subject swallowed 4ml of thin liquid barium. We measured hyoid displacement and opening of the upper esophageal sphincter (UES) by using four different standard planes.


RESULTS
In the young group, the correlation between anterior hyoid displacement and UES opening was significant in all standard planes. In the elderly group, the correlation between anterior hyoid displacement and UES opening was significant only in Camper's plane. Moreover, this plane is hard to be affected by morphological change as ageing.


CONCLUSIONS
Camper's plane was found to be as the most preferable plane for analyzing swallowing function.
Nakane
Ayako
A
Gerodontology, Department of Gerodontology, Division of Gerontology and Gerodontology, Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan. fujigerd@tmd.ac.jp
Tohara
Haruka
H
Ouchi
Yukari
Y
Goto
Shino
S
Uematsu
Hiroshi
H
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002508:Cephalometry; D003679:Deglutition / Q000502:physiology*; D049631:Esophageal Sphincter, Upper / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005471:Fluoroscopy; D006801:Humans; D006928:Hyoid Bone / Q000502:physiology; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012015:Reference Standards; D014741:Video Recording