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Impact of age on laryngopharyngeal reflux disease presentation: a multi-center prospective study

  • Laryngology
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A Letter to the Editor to this article was published on 13 November 2017

Abstract

The objective is to assess the differences in the severity of symptoms, signs, voice quality, and quality of life before and after treatment according to age in suspected laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) patients. The design used in this paper is prospective multi-center study. Eighty clinically diagnosed LPR patients with a reflux finding score (RFS) >7 and a reflux symptom index (RSI) >13 were treated with pantoprazole and diet recommendations for 3 months. Patients were subdivided into three groups according their age: group 1 (18–39 years, N = 21), group 2 (40–59 years, N = 31), and group 3 (≥60 years, N = 28). RSI, RFS, Voice Handicap Index (VHI), Short Form 36 questionnaire (SF36), aerodynamic, and acoustic measurements were evaluated at baseline and after treatment. The response to the empiric treatment was also assessed. Significant improvements in RSI, RFS, and VHI were found in all patient groups. The elderly patients showed a significantly lower RSI score than younger subjects (p = 0.035) without RFS difference among groups. At baseline, the SF36 score was better in group 3 with respect to social functioning (p = 0.049). At the 3-month follow-up, we found significant improvement of acoustic parameters only in the younger age groups (group 1 and group 2). The rate of resistant patients to the empiric treatment was higher in the younger group than in the elderly patient group (42.9 versus 28.6%). Age appears to reduce the subjective LPR symptom perception, leading to a lower rate of uncured patients. The utilization of acoustic parameters as an indicator of treatment effectiveness seems less useful for elderly subjects, probably due to an overlap between an aging voice and LPR.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been subsidized by the ARC No. AUWB-2012-12/17-UMONS convention from Communauté Française de Belgique. American Journal Expert for the proofreading of the paper.

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Author notes

  1. Bernard Harmegnies and Sven Saussez contributed equally to this work and should be regarded as joint last authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Faculty of Medicine, UMONS Research Institute for Health Sciences and Technology, University of Mons (UMons), Avenue du Champ de mars, 6, B7000, Mons, Belgium

    Jérôme R. Lechien & Sven Saussez

  2. Laboratory of Phonetics, Faculty of Psychology, Research Institute for Language sciences and Technology, University of Mons (UMons), Mons, Belgium

    Jérôme R. Lechien, Camille Finck, Kathy Huet, Véronique Delvaux, Myriam Piccaluga & Bernard Harmegnies

  3. Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, RHMS Baudour, EpiCURA Hospital, Baudour, Belgium

    Jérôme R. Lechien, Mohamad Khalife, Anne-Françoise Fourneau & Sven Saussez

  4. Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, CHU Saint-Pierre, CHU de Bruxelles, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

    Jérôme R. Lechien & Sven Saussez

  5. Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, CHU de Liege, Liege, Belgium

    Camille Finck

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  1. Jérôme R. Lechien
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Correspondence to Jérôme R. Lechien.

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Lechien, J.R., Finck, C., Huet, K. et al. Impact of age on laryngopharyngeal reflux disease presentation: a multi-center prospective study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 274, 3687–3696 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-017-4671-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-017-4671-z

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