Post laryngectomy speech rehabilitation outcome in elderly patients

The aim of our work has been to evaluate thedifferent options of tracheoesophageal voice rehabilitationin over 70-year-old patients, who had undergone laryngectomy,assessing advantages and drawbacks of thismethod of vocal recovery. A retrospective study has beencarried out. This has included 40 subjects, all aged morethan 70 years old, who have been referred to tracheoesophagealvoice rehabilitation. It has been realized a phonatoryfistula between trachea and esophagus withprosthesis positioning by means of a primary puncture in18 cases and it has been realized a secondary puncture in22 cases. The results gathered in these patients werecompared with data obtained from a group made of 39patients, less than 70 years of age that therefore representedour control group. In primary tracheoesophagealpuncture (TEP), the short-term success was 67 %, while inthe 22 cases who underwent secondary TEP, the short-termsuccess was 64 %. After 2 years from TEP, the long-termsuccess was 82.5 %. In the control group, the short-termsuccess was 65 % in primary TEP and 73 % in secondaryTEP. After 2 years from TEP, the long-term success was77 %. The evaluation of the results has shown the absenceof a statistically significant difference both as regardscomplications incidence, during and after surgery (p[0.9)and as regards overall success ratio of prosthesis implantsbetween the two groups (p[0.7). The possibilities oftracheoesophageal recovery of elderly patients do not showdissimilarities in comparison with the results in youngersubjects.

Lo scopo dello studio è stato quello di valutare i vantaggi ed i limiti della riabilitazione protesica tracheoesofagea in pazienti sottoposti a laringectomia di età superiore a 70 anni.