Vocal Cord Surgery – Voice Surgery

Vocal cord surgery, also referred to as vocal surgery or voice surgery, is usually necessary whenever tissue lesions (such as vocal cord nodules) or movement disorders of the vocal folds (vocal cord paralysis) lead to protracted periods of hoarseness.

As one of the most renowned voice surgeons in Europe, Dr. Wohlt is specialized in voice improvement operations, particularly on professional voice users and voice professionals. Alongside his extensive track record in “voice reconstruction” for patients with vocal cord nodules, vocal cord cysts, vocal cord polyps and Reinke's edema, his other area of clinical focus is on the surgical treatment of paralyzed vocal cords (unilateral vocal cord paralysis).

Over a period of more than 15 years, Dr. Wohlt has developed his own special method of voice surgery and then modified the technique to be particularly gentle on the voices of professional speakers and singers. It constitutes a surgical technique of plastic reconstruction that concerns itself with the viscoelastic properties of the delicate mucosal layers of the vocal cords and causes the most minimal of trauma to healthy vocal fold tissue.

This method of voice surgery is Dr. Wohlt's signature method which he has performed on hundreds of patients. Judging by the years of regular follow-up examinations, he knows that this surgical technique produces excellent long-term vocal outcomes.

Dr. Wohlt categorically rejects the method of indirect vocal cord surgery, especially for treating voice professionals.

The indirect method involves the conscious patient sitting in the examination chair across from the surgeon who employs a long, bent instrument (grasping forceps) that is advanced through the oral cavity down to the patient’s larynx. Not rarely, this undertaking triggers strong gagging reactions that cause the patient to make erratic defensive movements.

Here, the surgeon can only operate with one hand because he is holding an optical instrument in the other. Essentially, single-handed surgery merely consists of a blunt plucking or, even worse, a tearing off of the tissue lesions on the vocal fold surface. Since it can never be predicted with certainty how the mucous membrane boundary along the vocal fold margin will tear, this method may excise much larger portions of healthy tissues than desired or intended.

The result may invariably be irreversible vocal damage.

Proponents of the single-handed, conscious-patient method will argue that it allows stroboscopic verification at all times to determine how much tissue has been removed. As true as that may sound, it still glosses over the fact that any vocal fold tissue — once lost — cannot be reinstated, no matter how frequently the stroboscope is inserted. The outcome is often permanent injury to the voice.

The egregious disadvantages associated with indirect microlaryngoscopy are why Dr. Wohlt performs all phonosurgical interventions exclusively under general anesthesia.