Yoshinobu Ogawa

Augmentation of Paralyzed Vocal Cord with Autologous Fat Injection.

A 68-year-old male had vocal cord paralysis after extripation of a cervical vagus nerve neurilemoma. Autologous fat was injected into the vocal cord to medialize it. His voice showed both subjective and objective improvement. Although slight intermittent failure of glottic closure persisted, the vibratory margin was almost normal.The use of autologous fat injection for medialization of the vocal cord offers many theoretical advantages over other materials. 1) The graft is autolognous. 2) Fat is easy to obtain. 3) There is no immune reaction. 4) The process can be repeated as many times as necessary. 5) It is relatively inexpensive. 6) There is good preservation of sound waves on phonation.However, it is too early to evaluate the long-term effects of fat injection, and follow-up studies of more patients are needed.