Intraglottal Contact Pressures in Human Voice Production

Some fundamental questions concerning voice production remain unanswered despite numerous research approaches in various fields of voice science. It is widely believed that high intraglottal pressures may cause organic voice disorders – like vocal fold nodules or contact granulomas. This hypothesis seems reasonable but is difficult to prove given the challenges of pressure measurement and of establishing a causative link to disease. In this study we present a method for intraglottal contact pressure measurement in humans with a specially designed subminiature sensor. While implementing the measurement of the contact pressures, videolaryngoscopy is simultaneously used for online-monitoring. The new generation of subminiature sensors has now allowed us to make pressure measurements along the membranous vocal fold. We demonstrate contact pressure values for 10 healthy female and 10 healthy male subjects as well as for 10 patients with organic voice disorder. A video with endoscopic pictures illustrates the investigation procedure and data collection.