Abstract
Purpose: The Videofluorographic Swallowing
Study (VFSS) has become the routine method for
assessing swallowing dysfunction and accordingly,
much research has been conducted on this
procedure. However, due to a lack of standardization
of the method of analysis of VFSS, it is often
difficult to compare the results of such studies.
Therefore, we conducted a comparative study of
VFSS’s spatial measurement using different standard
planes used in the past study and Camper’s
plane and examined which plane was the most
preferable.
Method: VFSS was performed on 20 healthy
young volunteers (26.9±3 years) and 9 healthy
elderly (77.3±3 years). Each subject swallowed 4ml
of thin liquid barium. We measured hyoid displacement
and opening of the upper esophageal
sphincter (UES) by using four different standard
planes.
Results: In the young group, the correlation
between anterior hyoid displacement and UES
opening was significant in all standard planes. In
the elderly group, the correlation between anterior
hyoid displacement and UES opening was significant
only in Camper’s plane. Moreover, this plane is
hard to be affected by morphological change as
ageing.
Conclusions: Camper’s plane was found to be as
the most preferable plane for analyzing swallowing
function.
