Focus is upon our clinical experience in a prospective cohort study on cure of dystonia where the mode of treatment was fexofenadine tablets and local budesonide inhaler in the larynx, and in a randomized controlled trial of lifestyle change related to acid provocation of food and habits in laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). The advanced high-speed films is one new tool, another being optical coherence tomography (OCT), which should be used in the future in randomized controlled trials.

We are focusing on OCT of the swallowing process in the oesophagaus and larynx as well as the vocal fold function. It can be shown on OCT how the layer of the vocal folds develop, possibly corresponding to hormonal and paediatric development. The arytenoid area in the larynx should also be focused upon with OCT in pathology. The thyroid function is related to voice and the swallowing function, both hormonally and pathoanatomically. We know too little about voice and thyroid hormones in an updated way as well as the outer anatomic supporting muscular structure of the larynx, related to thyroid immune degeneration and cysts. Also, here OCT analyses might be of value.

Date Published: 26 February 2015
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 9303, Photonic Therapeutics and Diagnostics XI, 93031R (26 February 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2076378

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9303:
Photonic Therapeutics and Diagnostics XI
Hyun Wook Kang; Brian J. F. Wong M.D.; Melissa C. Skala; Bernard Choi; Guillermo J. Tearney M.D.; Andreas Mandelis; Nikiforos Kollias; Kenton W. Gregory M.D.; Mark W. Dewhirst D.V.M.; Justus F. Ilgner M.D.; Alfred Nuttal; Haishan Zeng; Laura Marcu; Claus-Peter Richter, Editor(s)