Abstract
Reconstructions of articulatory and masticatory functions are important for quality of life of cancer patients receiving the resection of the tongue and/or the oral floor. We examined postoperative articulatory functions in 10 patients reconstructed with recto-abdominal myocutaneous free flap after glossectomy. The functions were investigated by standardized perceptual and acoustical tests, including questionnaires test, 100 Japanese monosyllable speech intelligibility test, single-word intelligibility test and sound spectrography. In some selected cases, X-ray videography was also performed.
On the basis of the resection site, the present cases were classified into two types ; i, e, anterior type and lateral type. In cases of lateral type, the speech intelligibility was higher than those of anterior type. In cases of anterior type, dental and alveolar sounds were often confused with fricatives, whereas, in lateral type, velars sounds were often confused with affricates or flaps. These tendencies were also detected by acoustical analysis. X-ray videography showed that the above mentioned confusion was most likely due to compensatory movements of the reconstructed structure and remaining vocal tract organs. In conclusions, those results suggest that perceptual, acoustic and videographic evaluations are efficacious for representing the postoperative articulatory function after glossectomy followed by reconstruction surgery.
