Resolution of Muscle Tension Dysphonia with Reinke’s Edema Following STRETTA Therapy in a Patient with GERD: A Case Report

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Author Info

James E Dixon Edward J Nevins Michael John Viswanath YKS

Corresponding Author

Viswanath YKS
James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, UK

A B S T R A C T

Muscle Tension Dysphonia (MTD) is a syndrome involving abnormal vocal cord behaviour due to increased tension of laryngeal musculature. It has a complex etiology, but gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is implicated in up to half of cases. The authors present the first reported case of MTD being successfully treated using STRETTA, an endoscopic radio-frequency therapy, licenced for GERD. Since 2016, a 60- year-old female had symptoms of laryngo-pharyngeal reflux. These included dysphonia, cough, sore throat, and persistent throat clearing. She underwent flexible nasendoscopy demonstrating significant posterior laryngeal edema, and anterior-posterior constriction on phonation, suggestive of MTD. Despite anti-reflux medication, her symptoms persisted. Repeat flexible nasendoscopy demonstrated bilateral Reinke's edema. Her symptoms failed to improve despite incision and drainage of the Reinke’s edema. An EGD demonstrated reflux esophagitis, and a blunt angle of His. She underwent STRETTA and reports significant improvement of symptoms. Repeat nasoendoscopy showed convalescence of the Reinke’s edema. Existing evidence suggests that management of MTD with proton pump inhibitor (PPI) improves reflux symptoms such as chronic cough and heartburn but has a limited effect on measures of voice such as voice range profile, perceptual evaluation, and acoustic analysis. Given that the present patient found subjective improvement in voice quality, it is possible STRETTA may be preferable to PPI in treating MTD with regard to voice, but further assessment of voice quality pre- and post-STRETTA is needed. In LPR refractory to PPI, there is evidence that Laparoscopic Nissen Fundoplication (LNF) is successful; however, the cost-effectiveness of endoscopic anti-reflux procedures such as STRETTA is superior to operative management such as LNF. Therefore, STRETTA may well be more beneficial than both PPI and LNF in the treatment of MTD with LPR.

Article Info

Article Type

Case Report

Publication history

Received: Tue 22, Dec 2020
Accepted: Sat 09, Jan 2021
Published: Tue 19, Jan 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Viswanath YKS. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.SCR.2021.01.10