• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.35-38
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• 2020

Spasmodic dysphonia is a disease presumed to be a form of focal laryngeal dystonia. The widely used first-line treatment is botulinum toxin injection to the thyroarytenoid muscles. In spite of the effectiveness and safety of this method, it has a temporary effect that lasts only several months, resulting the patients' symptom fluctuating, called 'Botox rollercoaster.' Some surgical techniques had tried, but they had shown several limitations including high rate of recurrence. We tried thyroarytenoid myectomy with selective recurrent laryngeal nerve section in a patient with intractable spasmodic dysphonia. This procedure is an alternative treatment of spasmodic dysphonia to prevent recurrence and improve symptoms. During five years of follow-up, she has shown steady quality voice without any complication. To the best of our knowledgement, this is the longest follow-up case of this operation in South Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.132-135
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• 2019

Spasmodic dysphonia is a focal laryngeal dystonia that results in involuntary spasms during speech. The etiology of spasmodic dysphonia is not yet defined, but it is presumed to be a neurological abnormality of central nervous system motor function. The treatment of choice for spasmodic dysphonia is botulinum toxin injection directly at the laryngeal muscles. However botulinum toxin injection requires repeated procedures. Many different kinds of surgical treatments have been introduced but the recurrence rate is still high. So we performed myomectomy with LASER and neurectomy with specially designed electrical surgical knife which can cut recurrent laryngeal nerve branch selectively with its noble curved section. We report a case of a 43-year-old male patient with spasmodic dysphonia treated by thyroarytenoid myoneurectomy.