HIGH-DEFINITION VOICE CEPSTRAL ANALYSIS IN ADDUCTOR-TYPE SPASMODIC DYSPHONIA

To date, uncertainties regarding diagnostic criteria and distinctions among the different subtypes of laryngeal dystonia (ASD versus AbSD) are important challenges. ASD diagnosis is achieved according to the best clinical practice (Schwarz et al., 2009; Jinnah et al., 2013) and is based on phoniatric evaluation (laryngoscopic exam and voice narrow-band spectrogram) and clinical neurological evaluation. To help clinicians in the quantification of voice disability, a number of clinical subjective scales can be employed, being the VHI (consisting in three domains: emotional, functional, and physical)(Jacobson et al., 1997; Schindler et al., 2010) and the qualitative dysphonia clinical scale (DCS)(Scontrini et al., 2009), the two most diffused. To date, in ASD no standardized tool to quantify the effect of BoNT-A therapy is available. Starting from these observations and, given the absence of a standardized objective analysis to quantify voice abnormalities in ASD, the aim of the present study was to investigate differences in voice parameters between patients affected by ASD, both under the effect and not-under the effect of BoNT-A therapy, and compare these results with those obtained in a homogeneous group of age, sex, weight and height-matched non-smokers healthy subjects (HS).