General anaesthesia for thyroplasty

Abstract

A new anaesthetic technique is described for thyroplasty. Thyroplasty was performed to restore the voice in unilateral vocal cord paralysis. After skin incision and dissection down to the larynx, a window was cut in the thyroid ala and a silastic wedge used to displace the vocal cord medially. The required size of this wedge was determined by pre-operative computerized tomography scanning of the larynx. At this point the patient had to be awake and cooperative to allow repeated phonation to facilitate correct displacement of the vocal cord.