Correlation Between Self-Perceived Hoarseness, Perceptual Voice Evaluation, and Body Mass Index in Dysphonic Patients: A Study of 120 Cases.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the correlation between self-perceived vocal handicap, perceptual voice evaluation, and body mass index (BMI) in a cohort of patients presenting with hoarseness and to examine the correlation between perceptual voice evaluation and the Voice Handicap Index-10 (VHI-10) score in dysphonic patients with or without obesity.

STUDY DESIGN

Retrospective chart review.

METHODS

The medical records of patients presenting with hoarseness to the voice clinic of a tertiary referral center between September 2023 and September 2024 were reviewed. Demographic data included age, gender, BMI, smoking, and clinical diagnosis of dysphonia. The VHI-10 questionnaire was used as a patient self-reported vocal handicap outcome measure and the GRB (grade, roughness, breathiness) rating scale was used for perceptual voice evaluation.

RESULTS

The study included 120 dysphonic patients. The mean age was 53.5±15.1years. The most common diagnosis was Reinke's edema (20%) followed by vocal fold polyp (15.8%). Thirty-nine patients had a BMI <25kg/m and 81 patients had a BMI ≥25kg/m. The mean VHI-10 score was 16.05±7.54 with no correlation between BMI and the VHI-10 score (r < 0.1). The mean grade of dysphonia was 1.62±0.76. The mean rate of roughness was 1.36±0.66. The mean rate of breathiness was 0.84±0.87 with no correlation between BMI and any of the GRB rating scores (r < 0.1). There was a moderate positive correlation between the VHI-10 score and the overall grade of dysphonia and rate of roughness (r=0.456, P<0.001 and r=0.258, P=0.012).

CONCLUSION

The results of this investigation indicate no correlation between BMI, VHI-10 score and GRB rating in patients presenting with hoarseness. The results also showed a poor to moderate correlation between the VHI-10 score, the grade of dysphonia and roughness in the study group.