Acoustical Effects of Short-Term Endotracheal Intubation

Nam, Soon Yuhl; Bong, Sung Geun; Seo, Young Il; Yu, Hwa Kyung; Yoo, Seung Joo

Abstract

Background and Objective: Patients often complain of transient hoarseness and dysphagia after undergoing procedures requiring endotracheal intubation. Transient voice changes associated with endotracheal intubation are generally assumed to be a result of vocal fold trauma. This study was designed to characterise vocal changes aftershort-term endotracheal anesthesia using acoustic analysis for monitoring the presence of and recovery from intubation trauma. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Vocal functions of 25 patients undergoing chronic ear surgeries using general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation were analyzed preoperatively and postoperatively. Fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise to harmonic ratio were measured to assess vocal function.
RESULTS
In male, fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise toharmonic ratio did not differ significantly across recording sessions, although certain predictable trends were apparent. In female, statistically significant decrement in fundamental frequency and increment in jitter and shimmer were found postoperatively (p<0.05). One day after extubation, these change were return to preoperative values.
CONCLUSION
Even short-term endotracheal intubation affects acoustic-characteristics of voice and acoustic analysis are sensitive to identify and monitor minor laryngeal trauma due to endotracheal intubation.