Comment on “Using Innovative Acoustic Analysis to Predict the Postoperative Outcomes of Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis”

Abstract EN

We read with interest the study by Tsou et al.

[1] comparing an innovative acoustic measure, that is, the number of irregular peaks (NIrrP), with jitter and shimmer as measured by the Multi-Dimensional Voice Program (MDVP); the authors wanted to verify the ability of these three acoustic measures to predict the surgical outcome of fat injection laryngoplasty in unilateral vocal fold paralysis.

Using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, they found that NIrrP [Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) = 0.98, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.78–0.99] was a more accurate predictor of long-term surgical outcome than jitter (AUC = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.47–0.91) and shimmer (AUC = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.37–0.85) [1].