Surgical Voice Restoration Following Laryngectomy

Over the past three decades a variety of surgical techniques have been developed for voice restoration following laryngectomy. The underlying principle of these procedures is to divert pulmonary air into the gullet where vibrations of the tissue creates the sound used for speech production. To achieve successful surgical voice restoration voice production must be compatible with normal deglutition. Many of the surgical techniques resulting in good voice production report frequent problems with aspiration indicating they have not been equally successful in achieving normal deglutition. The current paper presents a simple primary surgical technique that provides a new sound source and normal deglutition. This primary surgical technique uses a membraneous tracheal flap for voice restoration combined with bilateral esophageal muscle flaps to avoid problems with aspiration.