Assessment of Radio(Chemo)Therapy-related Dysphagia in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Based on Cough-related Acoustic Features

To develop this objective and easily implementable assessment method of coughing based on acoustic features of voluntary and reflex coughs, there is a primary need in identifying and comparing acoustic cough features in healthy subjects and different disease-related coughs features. Cough is a common reason for seeking medical care. Chronic cough, defined as a cough that has lasted for longer that eight weeks, represents 10-38% of all referrals made to respiratory physicians [1-2]. Furthermore, between 60 and 80% of patients with chronic obstructivepulmonary disease (COPD) report cough. Following this pilot study comparing different populations, the applicability of the selected acoustic cough features should be examined in HNC patients with radiotherapy-induced dysphagia, Another frequent aspect of the clinical diagnostic examination of swallowing is perceptual analysis of voice quality immediately following deglutition. Changes in voice quality are assumed to provide information on the possible accumulation of saliva or food at the vocal folds level. It is reported that a change of voice may indicate laryngeal dysfunction or the presence of a foreign body at the laryngeal level [3] confirm that a normophonic voice after swallowing reflects a lack of aspiration-penetration. However, research shows that there is no strong correlation between aspiration and changes in perceptual voice quality (e.g. wet voice). A more reliable and easily implementable method could be detection of specific acoustic features of changes in voice quality.