Acta oto-laryngologica
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Acta oto-laryngologica · Feb 2008
Laryngeal fractures: clinical findings and considerations on suboptimal outcome.
We recommend early surgical exploration and fixation for patients with dislocated or comminuted laryngeal fractures to avoid long-term voice complications. One-third of 33 fracture patients rated their voice after the fracture had healed as fair but altered. ⋯ In all, 32 of 33 laryngeal fracture patients had blunt trauma and the main causative factors were sport injuries (39%) and physical assault (33%). All of the 33 laryngeal fracture patients had a good airway outcome. The subjective voice outcome was good for 20 (61%) and fair for 13 (39%) patients. The mean follow-up time was 39.5 months (range 2-114 months). In phoniatric evaluation most (six of eight) patients with fair voice outcome could not produce high pitched voices because of inability to stretch the vocal folds.