Predicting glottal closure insufficiency using fundamental frequency contour analysis

Background: Voice analysis has a limited role in a day-to-day voice clinic. We developed objective measurements of vocal folds (VF) glottal closure insufficiency (GCI) during phonation. Methods: We examined 18 subjects with no history of voice impairment and 20 patients with unilateral VF paralysis before and after injection medialization laryngoplasty. Voice analysis was extracted. We measured settling time, slope, and area under the fundamental frequency curve from the phonation onset to its settling-time. Results: The measured parameters, settling time, slope, and area under the curve were in correlation with the traditional acoustic voice assessments and clinical findings before treatment and after injection medialization laryngoplasty. Conclusion: We found that the fundamental frequency curve has several typical contours which correspond to different glottal closure conditions. We proposed a new set of parameters that captures the contour type, and showed that they could be used to quantitatively assess individuals with GCI.