Treatments offered

Treatment of different voice disorders requires special knowledge and expert skills.  The doctors in Yeson Voice Center can provide you the best quality of treatment when it comes to voice diseases.  The center is equipped with state of the art surgical technology that can manage any vocal fold lesion.

PERCUTANEOUS INJECTION LARYNGOPLASTY

Percutaneous injection laryngoplasty is a new method developed to improve the operating procedures using electromyogram.  Without the need of general anesthesia, this procedure preserves major vocal membrane and vocal layer, and allows for inserting an organic prosthesis in place.  The EMG needle helps to spot and insert the material, improving the voice dramatically almost permanently.

Advantages of injection laryngoplasty are: general anesthesia is not necessary, it only take 15-20 minutes, treatment is possible irrespective of patient’s health condition, hospitalization is not required, no incision needed, different treatments are available through different drugs in accordance to the patient’s condition, and insertion in the right area is possible depending on the illness of the patient.

Disadvantages are high cost of the medical appliance, knowledge and experience on EMG is needed, and high level of technique and experience is required.

MICROLARYNGEAL SURGERY

Microlaryngeal surgery or phonomicrosurgery has been developed since the 19^th century as the observation of the larynx through reflecting mirrors began.  Laryngeal mirrors provided the most significant part of understanding and treating vocal fold diseases.

Benign vocal fold diseases including vocal nodules, vocal polyp, sulcus vocalis, vocal cyst, and adhesive vocal folds are limited to the lamina propria which affects the movement of the epithelium that covers the vocal folds and the mucosa.

Submucosal Infusion Technique

Submucosal infusion is a technique which recovers the voice by separating the mucous membrane with lesion and the lamina propia of the vocal folds and preserving the lamina propia when performing the surgery.

Micro Mini-flap Surgery

As the microstructure of the vocal folds and the process of healing in benign vocal fold diseases have been demonstrated, studies have proved the significance of preserving the lamina propia of the vocal folds and the importance of vocal rest and rehabilitation.  As a result of these studies, surgical operations of the vocal folds including the micro mini-flap surgery which can bring the voice to original condition have been developed.

PULSED DYE LASER LARYNGEAL SURGERY

Yeson Voice Center acquired the Photo Genica SV PDL from Cynosure Inc. US. This equipment can perform laryngeal surgery without the need of general anesthesia.  PDL selects and solidifies only blood vessels at vocal band.  It does not damage the healthy tissue.  It selects and destroys only the abnormal tissue.

The 585 nm Pulsed Dye Laser Surgery guides the PDL with optical fiber and connects it through the digital electric laryngoscope channel so it does not harm laryngeal and surrounding tissue. 

Advantages of PDL Surgery are: only local anesthesia is required, day surgery is possible, no hospitalization required, bloodless surgery, safe and effective, excellent in bleeding control, no damage to laryngeal tissue, excellent restoration of tissue in surgical region, excellent in improving voice by rearranging collagen, takes only 20 minutes for the procedure, and painless during and after the surgery.

VOICE FEMINIZATION SURGERY

Voice feminization surgery is changing one’s voice to a female, and it is for those who are physically built as a male and also has a deep male voice, but whose actual sexual identity is a female.  This surgery therefore, are for those who have experienced abnormal hormone functions as a child and got affected with adrogenital syndrome or androphonia, or through the side effect of the hormone treatment for aplastic anemia.

The common male voice frequency is approximately 100-150 Hz and for females it is approximately 200-250 Hz.  The reason why the male voice tone is lower than females is because the males vocal cord is bigger and longer than the females.  Therefore, this treatment makes this vocal cord shorter and thinner on the basis of the three factors.

The new method of voice feminization surgery, called "Vocal Fold Shortening and Advancement of Anterior Commissure," is the world's first treatment that does not incise the skin and get the same result of modifying the vocal cord to a female shape using an endoscope.

This treatment which was developed by the Yeson Voice Center was presented at the Voice Foundation Association in The United States on May 29, 2007.  This VFSAAS differs from the previous methods in that it leaves less damage on the vocal cord tissue and incision is not required proving this is the best physiological method in increasing one's vocal pitch.

Voice pitch is determined by the size and length of the vocal fold.  To help you understand better, it is the same logic with a musical instrument, guitar.  Thick and long string makes a low pitch, thin and short makes a high pitch.  Male and female vocal fold sizes are different, male's is thick and long while female's is thin and short.  Vocal Fold Shortening and Advancement of Anterior Commissure was developed in Yeson Voice Center.  The surgical procedure is dissecting the anterior 1/3 portion of the vocal fold membrane, then it makes the high voice tone.

Their average vocal frequency increased from 137.3 Hz to 211.5 Hz, showing a 74.2 Hz increase in one’s voice frequency.  Also, different from the surgery methods described earlier, this treatment makes it possible for maintenance of matural phonation and even singing after the surgery.

There are no particular complications after the surgery, but there might be some foreign body sensations in the vocal cord and rough voice, pain in the neck, sputum and cough; but these are all temporary and with proper medication and time it will resolve.

Phonoplasty surgery should be operated through the most suitable method for each individual patient, and for this to occur, the vocal status after surgery must be predicted beforehand in order to increase a better result.

Also, the tone quality of the voice and resonance of the sound can be changed into a more female voice by changing into a more female voice by changing the shape of the pharyngeal cavity through the patient’s motivation, and by attending voice clinics and voice rehabilitations.

The most important thing about this process is that each patient should get voice feminization surgery from an experienced voice clinic, and a clinic which can provide voice rehabilitations; otherwise one cannot expect any voice improvement.  Therefore, patients must get voice feminization surgery by an experienced voice specialist.