The impact of tonsillectomy with or without adenoidectomy on speech and voice.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate changes in acoustic features of speech and voice after tonsillectomy with or without adenoidectomy.


METHODS
Before and 1 month after surgery the following parameters were estimated: average of fundamental frequency (Fo), Jitter percent (Jitt), Shimmer, noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR), voice turbulence index (VTI), soft phonation index (SPI), degree of voiceless (DUV), degree of voice breaks (DVB) and peak amplitude variation (vAm); as an evaluation of nasal resonance, speech articulation and voice handicap index (VHI).


RESULTS
The results were statistically evaluated using the unpaired t-test. Probability values below 0.05 were regarded as significant. One month after surgery, our data showed significant (P<0.05) improvements of the acoustic and other parameters in the children submitted to adenotonsillectomy: Fo (176Hz vs. 206Hz, after sustained vowels: 206Hz vs. 192Hz; 148Hz vs. 168Hz; 171Hz vs. 161Hz after balanced sentences), Jitt (0.85% vs. 1.81% to 0.82% vs. 1.81%), Shimmer (3.41% vs. 5.81% to 4.89% vs. 5.73%), NHR (0.16 vs. 0.42 to 0.29 vs. 0.39), VTI (0.05 vs. 0.38 to 0.28 vs. 0.37), SPI (14.78 vs. 21.14-19.89 vs. 21.89), DUV (0% vs. 0.44% to 0% vs. 0.48%), DVB (0% vs. 0.42% to 0% vs. 0.42%) and vAm (8.93% vs. 23.89% to 8.89% vs. 24.25%).


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest the role of adenotonsillectomy in the improvement of voice and speech quality and of objective evaluation of speech and voice in the correct management of these children.
Salami
Angelo
A
ENT Department, University of Genoa, Via dei Mille 11/9, 16147 Genoa, Italy.
Jankowska
Barbara
B
Dellepiane
Massimo
M
Crippa
Barbara
B
Mora
Renzo
R
D000233:Adenoidectomy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D014068:Tonsillectomy; D014833:Voice Quality / Q000502:physiology*