Korean J Otolaryngol-Head Neck Surg.  1998 Oct;41(10):1324-1330.

Morphological and Acoustic Change of Autologous Fat Injection for Unilateral Vocal Cord Paralysis

• Lee JW
• Cho JM
• Park HM
• Baek MJ
• Roh HJ
• Goh EK
• Chon KM
• Wang SG
• Lee DG

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Glottic incompetence resulting from the unilateral vocal cord paralysis can be improved by medialization of the paralyzed vocal cord. Recently, it has been thought that the autologous fat could be used as a good material for augmenting paralytic vocal cord. There were reports about long-term follow-up results concerning voluminous, histological and acoustic changes after autologous fat injection. Authors observed periodically the morphological and acoustic changes of autologous fat deposits which were injected into iatrogenically paralyzed vocal cord.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Eight mongrel dogs were injected with autologous fat into the iatrogenically paralyzed vocal cords, and were sacrificed at 1, 3, 6 months after the fat injection and observed histological and acoustic changes.
RESULTS
The bulk of the fat graft lasted at least 3 months in this experiment. There were minimal evidence of inflammatoy changes, foreign body reaction and improvement of voice quality was noted in spectrography.
CONCLUSION
The autologous fat injection appears to be a relatively safe and effective method for medializing the paralyzed vocal cord.

Keyword

Vocal cord; Vocal cord paralysis; Autologous fat; Intracordal injection; Histological and acoustic evaluation

MeSH Terms

Acoustics*
Animals
Dogs
Follow-Up Studies
Foreign-Body Reaction
Transplants
Vocal Cord Paralysis*
Vocal Cords
Voice Quality