The Role of Computer-Aided Diagnosis in Speech Restoration in Patients with Cancer of the Oral Cavity and Oropharynx after Hemiglosectomy: a Prospective Comparative Study

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers usually require extensive surgeries accompanied by damages to anatomical structures and impaired speech function.
 AIM. To compare the effectiveness and terms of speech rehabilitation in patients with cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx using various speech restoration techniques.
 MATERIALS AND METHODS. We studied the effectiveness and length of speech rehabilitation in 140 patients with stages II–IV oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer. The age of the patients ranged from 24 to 70 years. All the patients underwent hemiglosectomy. Combined modality treatment and postoperative speech rehabilitation were performed according to the technique developed in the Department of Head and Neck Tumors of the Oncology Research Institute. Speech rehabilitation effectiveness was studied on the basis of subjective and objective evaluation of speech using the computer-software complex (OnkoSpeech v 1.0).
 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Impaired speech function of patients was observed before starting combined modality treatment and manifested as a change in the prosodic system of speech and subjective communication difficulties associated with the presence of a tumor. After surgery, all the patients demonstrated impaired speech function, ranging from distorted pronunciation to the complete absence of verbal communication. Speech rehabilitation started 8 to 29 days after surgery: in the study group I, Me = 9.6, in the study group II, Me = 9.8, values did not have statistically significant differences (p 0.05). At the beginning of speech rehabilitation, to restore activity and coordinate the work of articulatory apparatus muscles and speech expiration, special complexes of articulation and breathing exercises followed by sound pronunciation correction were performed. Postoperative speech rehabilitation resulted in the improvement of speech function in 100 % of cases. In group II, where the correction of sound pronunciation was performed on the basis of speech diagnosis data using the OnkoSpeech v 1.0 computer-software complex, it was possible to achieve a better result of sound pronunciation correction of all the studied sounds, except for hissing (lingual-frontal) [sh], [zh], [shch], [ch].
 CONCLUSION. The use of the OnkoSpeech v1. ± software package for speech computer-aided diagnosis made it possible to objectively evaluate and quantify the effectiveness of the correction of the sound pronunciation of six phonemes of the Russian language, improve the results of the correction of sound pronunciation and reduce the time of speech therapy.