To identify and describe voice, speech and swallowing abnormalities in patients with Sjögren's Syndrome (SS).
This was a prospective cross-sectional descriptive observational study. Patients with SS were interviewed and physically explored. Nasolaryngeal endoscopy, video laryngeal stroboscopy, fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing and computerized voice spectrographic analysis (PRAAT® software) of voice and speech were also performed.
We included 31 patients (96.7% women). Average time of evolution was 5 years; mean age was 48.4 years. Of these SS cases, 87% were secondary and 13% primary. Symptomatology: 70.9% dysphagia, 41.9% dysphonia, 35.4% dysglossia, 3.2% dysarthria. We found abnormalities principally in: one or more cranial nerves (V, VII, IX, X, XII) (67.7%), nasopharyngolaryngeal mucosa (77.4%), mucosal wave of vocal cords (90%), swallowing mechanism (90.3%), spectrogram of the vowels /e/ (58.06%) and /i/ (51.61%), and rhythm of the trisyllable "pataka" (35.48%).
Patients with SS have voice, speech and swallowing abnormalities, not only associated to xerosis, but perhaps also to neurological abnormalities, probably secondary to the syndrome.