Voice changes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Introduction: Voice changes are not a direct symptom of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but many COPD patients experience voice changes. Aim of the work: The aim of this work was to establish the voice changes in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Patients and methods: Fifty COPD patients were conducted in this study. Patients were enrolled after obtaining informed consents. All patients were subjected to clinical diagnostic aids which include history taking (age, sex, smoking index and drug history), general and chest examinations, spirometry, arterial blood gases, chest X-ray, endoscopic examination of the larynx, auditory perceptual assessment and acoustic analysis of voice. Results: The age of the patients ranged from 32 to 76 years, all patients were current or former smokers and the pack year index ranged from 20 to 66 with a mean ± SD value of 41.16 ± 13.80. Dysphonia was perceived in 25 (50%) patients. There was significant positive correlation between the smoking index with Jitter%, Shimmer% and the grade of dysphonia. There was significant positive correlation between Jitter%, Shimmer% and the grade of dysphonia with the large doses of ICSs usage and with pMDIs usage. Moreover, there was significant inverse correlation between Jitter%, Shimmer% and the grade of dysphonia with DPIs usage and with FVC, FEV1 and MMEF% of predicted values. In conclusion: Dysphonia (hoarseness) in COPD patients is multifactorial. Successful analysis should depend on cooperation between pulmonologists, voice specialists, and laryngologists