Effects of Endoscopic Sinus Surgery on Nasality

Dhong, Hun Jong; Kim, Sun Il; Kwon, Joong Keun; Yun, Young Sun; Kang, Su Mi; Chu, Kwang Chol

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: When the impairment of nasal airway patency in patients with chronic sinusitis such as mucosal edema or nasal polyps is resolved after functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS), it is expected that patients no longer complain of hyponasal voice. However, patients who have undergone FESS sometimes complain of more hyponasal voice, or thick voice. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of FESS on voice in terms of nasality.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Thirty-three patients who underwent FESS and thirty normal adults who had no sinus or nasal pathology were selected for this study. We performed nasalance test for patients group before and 3 months after the operation and for the control group without any medication.
RESULTS
Patients' preoperative mean nasalance were not low compared with that of control group in all sentences. It was different from perceptual hyponasality they had complained. Postoperative mean nasalance in patients showed statistically significant increase. Higher change ratio of nasalance was noted in Mamma passage than the other passages.
CONCLUSION
There was significant increase in nasalance scores after FESS. Thus, we must consider the possibility of voice changes postoperatively in professional voice users.