Voice abnormality in adults with congenital and adult-acquired growth hormone deficiency.

Context: Adult males with congenital, untreated, severe GH deficiency (GHD) due to genetic GHRH receptor deficiency exhibit distinctive, high-pitched, and raspy voice characteristics.

Objective/design: To determine the physical underpinning of this phenomenon, we performed voice recordings, translarynx impedance measurements, spectral analysis, and estimates of spectral complexity [approximate entropy (ApEn)] in four affected men. Results were compared with those obtained in four men with untreated adult-onset GHD and a normal male population.

Spectral pattern complexity analysis and the quantification of voice normality in healthy and radiotherapy patient groups.

Vocal fold functionality may alter in response to direct radiotherapy or indirectly by perturbation of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. Perceptual assessment of voice quality is difficult to summarise in a single, reliable figure of normality and normality itself is undefined. In this study spectral analysis of vocal fold vibration, based on impedance variations measured across the larynx using an electro-glottogram, is used to build a single parameter description of standard vowel phonation in the normal male population.