ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Fibreoptic laryngoscopic assessment of patients with hoarseness: A cross-sectional analysis

Auwal Adamu¹, Emmanue¹ Sara Kolo², Abdulrazak Ajiya², Ahmad Mahmud³, Iliyasu Yunusa Shuaibu⁴, Onyekwere George B Nwaorgu⁵

¹ Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital/Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Yelwa, Nigeria
²Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital/Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria
³ Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Federal Medical Centre Yola/College of Medicine Modibbo Adama University, Yola, Nigeria
⁴ Department of Surgery, Division of Otorhinolaryngology, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria/Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria
⁵ Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University College Hospital Ibadan/College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Auwal Adamu
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital/Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi Nigeria

Source of Support: None
Conflict of Interest: None

Background: Hoarseness is a common clinical manifestation of laryngeal diseases. The cause of hoarseness may not always be a simple inflammatory disease, but it can be from other serious life-threatening conditions such as laryngeal cancer, for which a delay in diagnosis of such condition may compromise treatment, resulting in poor prognosis and a decreased survival rate. Against this background, we evaluated the causes of hoarseness using fibreoptic laryngoscopy in our environment.

Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of patients with hoarseness attending ENT clinic of our institution. Ethical clearance and consent were obtained. A questionnaire was used to collect relevant clinical data, fibreoptic laryngoscopy was carried out, and the data was analysed using the Statistical Products and Service Solution version 20.0.

Results:The study recruited 90 patients with hoarseness. The age of the patients ranged between 18 and 70 years with a mean of 40.1?±?14.8 years. There were 51 (56.7%) males and 39 (43.3%) females. About 46 (51.2%) of the patients had intermittent hoarseness, whereas 44 (48.8%) had persistent hoarseness. Most of the patients, 49 (54.4%), had hoarseness for less than 6 months before presentation. The fibreoptic laryngoscopic findings were non-specific laryngitis 49 (54.5%), laryngeal tumor 20 (22.2%), vocal cord polyp 7 (7.7%), laryngeal papilloma 6 (6.7%), vocal cord palsy 5 (5.6%), and others 3 (3.3%).

Conclusion: Laryngeal tumour constituted a significant percentage of fibreoptic laryngoscopic findings in patients with hoarseness after nonspecific laryngitis. Therefore, fibreoptic laryngoscopy is recommended for all patients with hoarseness in order to detect sinister pathology early.