Abstract
A submucosal fat autograft was implanted within the cover of injured vocal folds of five dogs. The implant occurred six weeks after unilateral mucosal excision had been performed. Three months postoperatively the larynges of these animals were excised and their phonation compared to those of normal dog larynges and to other larynges with mucosal excision (but without fat-grafting). Radiated acoustic pressure from the artificially driven larynges was recorded and digitized at 20 kHz with 16 bits resolution. Amplitude and fundamental frequency perturbations were extracted from a segment of phonation to assess the stability of the acoustic signals from the three groups. It was found that fat-augmentation after mucosal excision reduced amplitude and frequency perturbation measures. There was no significant difference between fat-augmented and normal vocal folds. The acoustic measures were also positively correlated with phonation threshold and phonation efficiency measures reported earlier. Result suggests that submucosal fat autograft implantation within an injured vocal fold cover cannot only restore the ease of phonation, but also the stability of phonation, which is a component of vocal quality.

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