50-year-old male patient. Suddenly hoarse voice and wheezing. On arrival, the patient was worried that he had laryngeal cancer. Through laryngeal endoscopy, this male patient was diagnosed with: unilateral vocal fold paralysis.
What is vocal fold paralysis?
The laryngeal vocal folds, which are the vocal organs of the voice, are regulated by the vagus nerve, the 10th of the 12 pairs of brain nerves that extend from the brain. The laryngeal nerve in the vagus nerve, the laryngeal recurrent nerve and the supraglottic nerve innervate the muscles in the larynx and the vocal folds, and the voice is produced by the regulation of these muscles, and the closure of the vocal folds is also related to the breathing movement and prevents the flow of food into the airway.
The laryngeal nerve in the brain closes the vocal cords on both sides, and the gas flowing through the vocal cords causes the mucous membrane of the vocal cords to vibrate and produce the voice. However, if this nerve is paralyzed, the vocal cords cannot be closed and remain open, so the air flowing through the vocal cords does not cause the vocal cords to vibrate, and a hoarse voice is produced. When swallowing food, the vocal cords are not fully closed and cannot prevent food from flowing into the airway, so choking often occurs.
These phenomena are called vocal cord paralysis. Vocal fold paralysis on one side is called unilateral vocal fold paralysis, and when the vocal folds on both sides are paralyzed, it is called bilateral vocal fold paralysis.
There are many causes of vocal fold paralysis
1, surgery-induced laryngeal nerve injury. (Thyroid surgery, vagus nerve surgery, intervertebral disc surgery, carotid artery surgery, lung surgery, esophageal surgery, etc.)
2.Understood cause
3.External injury
4, Central nerve and peripheral nerve abnormalities (cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction, multiple sclerosis, AML, cerebral nerve abnormalities, etc.)
5.Inflammatory diseases
6, congenital paralysis
Vocal fold paralysis can be cured by percutaneous vocal fold plastic surgery.
Percutaneous vocal fold plastic surgery is the world’s first developed method of vocal fold plastic surgery using electromyography machine without anesthesia without skin incision under the condition of simple injection of biological products in the neck.
Advantages of percutaneous vocal fold plastic surgery
1.No need for general anesthesia.
2. The surgery time is short, only 15 to 20 minutes.
3. The procedure is not related to the patient’s physical condition.
4.No hospitalization is required, and you can go home after the injection.
5.No skin incision.
6.According to the type of disease, you can choose the appropriate drug to administer the procedure.
7.According to the patient’s disease status, it can be injected into place correctly.
So can all patients with vocal fold paralysis undergo percutaneous vocal fold plastic surgery?
If there is no direct damage to the nerve, it is possible to heal naturally after about 6 months to 1 year. However, a more aggressive treatment approach has recently been adopted, with laryngeal endoscopy and laryngeal electromyography to understand the correct cause and degree of symptoms and predict the likelihood of recovery. Surgical treatment is then performed according to the likelihood of recovery.