Association between presbylarynx morphological severity and acoustic voice parameters

OpenAlex İngilizce

Aim: Presbylarnx is an endoscopic reflection of age-related laryngeal changes; and the lack of a standard classification system results in uncertainty in diagnosis and treatment. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the morphological classification of presbylarynx and the sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics of patients; self-reported questionnaires; and objective acoustic voice analysis parameters. Methods: In this prospective cross-sectional study; 172 participants aged 60 years and older underwent morphological evaluation of presbylaringeal changes using rigid videolaryngostroboscopy. In the evaluation; a three-tiered system was used to classify presbylarynx: Type 0 (normal); Type 1 (atrophy/bowing); and Type 2 (atrophy and glottic insufficiency). Analyses were performed of the sociodemographic characteristics of the patients; body mass index (BMI); Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI); Turkish Voice Handicap Index-10 (T-VHI-10) scores; and acoustic parameters (fundamental frequency (F0); jitter (%); shimmer (%); harmonic-noise ratio (HNR); cepstral peak prominence smoothed (CPPS); and Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI-3.0)). Results: No statistically significant relationship was found between the morphological types of presbylarynx (Type 0; 1; 2) and age; gender; BMI; CCI; and T-VHI-10 scores (p > 0.05 for all comparisons). In the objective acoustic analysis; Type 2 morphology showed significantly higher Shimmer % (p=0.015); lower CPPS (p=0.013); and higher AVQI-3.0 (p=0.027) values compared to Type 1. Conclusion: The results of this study show that the morphological severity of presbylarynx is strongly related to objective acoustic sound parameters; but not directly related to subjective sound perception or general anthropometric characteristics of the patients. This consistency between morphological and acoustic findings emphasizes the importance of supporting endoscopic examination with objective sound analysis in clinical evaluation. Future studies should be designed with larger samples and methods that directly measure muscle mass (e.g.; DEXA; BIA) to elucidate the etiology of presbylarynx.