Abstract
The possibility of electronic artificial laryngeal implantation (insertion and fitting to a skin-fold pocket) was studied in 41 laryngetomized patients. The hypophryngeal anterior skin-fold thickness was measured and the correlation between thickness and age, years after surgery, hyoid bone remaining and Body Mass Index were evaluated. An unbalanced electromagnetic type vibration transducer was designed as a voice source. Several psychoacoustic evaluations were performed to obtain the most reasonable voice source. Action potentials of the inferior laryngeal nerve on the occasion of voluntary voicing were recorded and were used as a trigger of the voice source transducer. With further study, the electronic artificial laryngeal implantation should prove useful for voice reconstruction in the laryngectomized patients.
