Journal Article

Voice disorder in systemic lupus erythematosus

de Macedo, Milena S. F. C., Costa, Kauê M., da Silva Filho, Manoel

2017

Overview

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic disease characterized by progressive tissue damage. In recent decades, novel treatments have greatly extended the life span of SLE patients. This creates a high demand for identifying the overarching symptoms associated with SLE and developing therapies that improve their life quality under chronic care. We hypothesized that SLE patients would present dysphonic symptoms. Given that voice disorders can reduce life quality, identifying a potential SLE-related dysphonia could be relevant for the appraisal and management of this disease. We measured objective vocal parameters and perceived vocal quality with the GRBAS (Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain) scale in SLE patients and compared them to matched healthy controls. SLE patients also filled a questionnaire reporting perceived vocal deficits. SLE patients had significantly lower vocal intensity and harmonics to noise ratio, as well as increased jitter and shimmer. All subjective parameters of the GRBAS scale were significantly abnormal in SLE patients. Additionally, the vast majority of SLE patients (29/36) reported at least one perceived vocal deficit, with the most prevalent deficits being vocal fatigue (19/36) and hoarseness (17/36). Self-reported voice deficits were highly correlated with altered GRBAS scores. Additionally, tissue damage scores in different organ systems correlated with dysphonic symptoms, suggesting that some features of SLE-related dysphonia are due to tissue damage. Our results show that a large fraction of SLE patients suffers from perceivable dysphonia and may benefit from voice therapy in order to improve quality of life.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adolescent / Adult / Anxiety / Autoimmune diseases / Biology and Life Sciences / Care and treatment / Chronic conditions / Chronic illnesses / Disease / Disease control / Dysphonia / Engineering and Technology / Esophagus / Fatigue / Female / Harmonics / Hospitals / Humans / Immunology / Life span / Lupus / Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic - pathology / Medicine and Health Sciences / Middle Aged / Noise / Noise intensity / Patients / Physical Sciences / Quality / Quality of Life / Research and Analysis Methods / Rheumatology / Risk factors / Social Sciences / Speech disorders / Studies / Surveys and Questionnaires / Systemic lupus erythematosus / Values / Variables / Vibration / Voice / Voice Disorders - diagnosis / Voice Disorders - pathology / Voice Quality - physiology / Young Adult