Fat augmentation for glottic insufficiency.

Objectives: Fat lipoinjection augmentation for glottic insufficiency has been used in patients with vocal fold paralysis. Relatively little information is available on the effectiveness of fat injection in patients with vocal atrophy, intubation trauma, and post-hemilaryngectomy defects.

Study Design: This paper retrospectively compares the efficiency of fat injection in patients with vocal cord paralysis (n = 9), vocal scar (n = 13), and vocal atrophy (n = 11).

Methods: The perceptual acoustic, phonatory function, and videolaryngostroboscopic data were evaluated before and after fat augmentation in 33 patients.

Results: Mean follow-up time was 9.7 months. Nineteen patients had excellent results. Three patients had no change. Five patients had late failure. Six patients were lost to follow-up. Phonatory function showed significant improvement in jitter, shimmer, noise-to-harmonic ratio, maximal phonation time, grade, asthenia, and breathiness (P < .05). Videolaryngostroboscopic rating showed significant improvement in right linearity of the vocal fold edge, amplitude of vocal fold vibration, excursion of the mucosal wave, vibratory behavior, and phase symmetry (P < .05). Anterior defects did better than posterior defects. Small vocal fold defects did better than large defects.

Conclusions: Fat injection is a good autogenous implant and may be considered as an option in management of patients with vocal fold scar, defect, or atrophy. Reabsorption of fat is a problem, but the procedure may be repeated.