Laser Saves Voice Quality of Vocal Cord Cancer Patients
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are using precision lasers to effectively treat early vocal cord cancers without reducing the patient’s voice quality.
The pulsed Potassium-Titanyl-Phosphate laser being used at MGH is an angiolytic laser that uses wavelengths of laser light to specifically target diseased cells without damaging healthy vocal cord tissue.
A team led by Dr Steven Zeitels of the MGH Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation began applying pulsed lasers to early vocal cord cancers more than five years ago. Similar technology was originally applied to the removal of port-wine stains by dermatologist R. Rox Anderson, MD, the director of the MGH Wellman Center of Photomedicine, who collaborated closely with Dr Zeitels.
The first 22 patients who’ve received MGH’s pulsed laser treatments for vocal cord cancer are cancer-free up to 5 years after treatment without surgical removal of vocal cord tissue or loss of voice quality, although some have required multiple laser treatments. Dr Zeitels estimates that 90 percent of early vocal cord cancer patients would be candidates for pulsed laser treatment. As he said about the technology,
“It has greatly enhanced the precision by which we can perform many procedures for chronic laryngeal diseases, both in the operating room, accompanied by the surgical microscope, and in the office.”
Steven M. Zeitels, MD, FACS
Director, Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation, MGH
Dr Zeitels gained previous notoriety while treating vocal conditions in singers Steven Tyler of the band Aerosmith and Julie Andrews of the film The Sound of Music.
MGH reported results from their research at the annual meeting of the American Broncho-Esophagological Association and their findings are scheduled for publication in a supplemental edition of the Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology.
Source: EurekAlert.org
Related Links: HealthDay News; The New York Times
Technorati Tags: laryngeal cancer; head and neck cancer; throat cancer; pulsed-KTP; cordectomy
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