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Vocal fold paralysis is one of the diseases that particularly affect quality of life. While unilateral paralysis leads to glottis closure insufficiency and hoarseness, bilateral paralysis compromises respiration and limits the exercise tolerance. Bioimplants have been used to treat persistent paralysis for over 100 years. The spectrum ranges from autologous tissue transfer and resorbable or permanent injection materials to composite thyroplasty implants and active electrical implants for neurostimulation of the larynx. If bioimplants are used in accordance with the recommendations, the quality of life of affected patients can be significantly improved today.Stimmlippenlähmungen gehören zu den die Lebensqualität in besonderem Maße beeinträchtigenden Erkrankungen. Während einseitige Paresen zu Glottisschlussinsuffizienz und Heiserkeit führen, gefährden beidseitige Paresen die Atmung und schränken die körperliche Belastungsfähigkeit ein. Zur Therapie persistierender Paresen werden seit über 100 Jahren Bioimplantate eingesetzt. Das Spektrum reicht vom autologen Gewebetransfer über resorbierbare bzw. permanente Injektionsmaterialen bis hin zu Komposit-Thyreoplastikimplantaten und aktiven elektrischen Implantaten für die Neurostimulation des Larynx. Bei indikationsgerechtem Einsatz der Bioimplantate kann die Lebensqualität der betroffenen Patienten heute erheblich verbessert werden.

Significant and new impulses regarding the treatment concept for outpatient phonosurgery on unsedated patients are currently coming from various Anglo-American authors. These "office-based procedures" have been propagated as an alternative to many conventional surgical interventions under anesthesia. The main reason for this remarkable development is the use of new endoscopic techniques in combination with photoangiolytic laser (KTP and blue laser), which allow safe and efficient phonosurgical procedures. Patient acceptance is high since outpatient procedures are considered to have a lower surgical risk. Despite the widespread euphoria, there is a lack of studies evaluating the medical decision criteria and safety management of office-based laryngeal surgery.Wesentliche und neue Impulse, die das Behandlungskonzept für ambulante phonochirurgische Eingriffe am unsedierten Patienten betreffen, stammen aktuell aus dem angloamerikanischen Sprachraum. Die dort etablierten „office-based procedures“ werden als eine Alternative zu vielen konventionellen operativen Larynxeingriffen in Vollnarkose propagiert. Maßgeblich für diese Entwicklung ist der Einsatz neuer endoskopischer Techniken in Kombination mit photoangiolytischen Laserverfahren (KTP-Laser und blauer Laser), die eine sichere und effiziente ambulante Phonochirurgie ermöglichen. Die Akzeptanz seitens der Patienten ist hoch, da ambulante Eingriffe als risikoärmer gelten. Ungeachtet der verbreiteten Euphorie fehlen weiterführende Studien, welche die medizinischen Entscheidungskriterien und das Sicherheitsmanagement bei dieser neuen ambulanten Ausrichtung der Kehlkopfchirurgie bewerten.

Unilateral vocal fold palsy is a frequent cause of hoarseness. In the presence of glottis closure insufficiency, the effectiveness of conservative voice therapy is often limited and phonosurgery may be indicated. Injection laryngoplasty is effective for correction of insufficiency. Early intervention during the first 6 months after diagnosis is desired to avoid subsequent insufficient endogenous compensation. Particularly patients with glottic closure insufficiency ≤2 mm in stroboscopy may benefit from this procedure. With appropriate patient selection, duration of the effect exceeding 12 months has been described for hyaluronic acid, calcium hydroxylapatite, and autologous fat. Due to rare complications such as allergic swelling at the injection site, regular laryngoscopic monitoring and observation for two nights after injection are recommended. The voice must only be rested for a few hours.

Laryngomalacia is the most common cause of stridor in infants. The stridor is caused by an inward collapse of supraglottic structures during inspiration resulting in an inspiratory stridor. The exact etiology still remains unclear. The surgical procedure of choice for laryngomalacia is supraglottoplasty. From 2009 to 2016 a total of 71 children were treated by supraglottoplasty in the department for pediatric otorhinolaryngology of the Stuttgart Hospital. The indications for supraglottoplasty were laryngomalacia with severe inspiratory stridor, oxygen desaturation, suprasternal or chest retraction, feeding difficulties and/or failure to thrive. The overall success rate was 86 % but there was a clear difference between children with isolated laryngomalacia and the group with associated comorbidities. The success rate for patients with isolated laryngomalacia was 98 % and for patients with associated comorbidities 57 %. Supraglottoplasty is therefore an effective and safe treatment for symptomatic laryngomalacia and a reduction in the success rate showed a clear correlation with the presence of congenital comorbidities.

Within the last years the injection laryngoplasty is a common method in treating patients with a unilateral vocal cord paralysis. The augmentation with VOX-Implants is an option for a permanent treatment. The aim was to evaluate the quality of voice as well as the quality of life in this patients and especially if it is comparable to other methods.We analyzed prospectively 20 patients who underwent injection laryngoplasty with VOX-Implants in general anesthesia. To verify the glottic closure we examined each patient pre- and postoperative using the rigid stroboscope and the flexible videoendoscope. To measure the voice related quality of life the voice handicap index (VHI-12) had to be answered. Maximum phonation time, RBH-Scale, Voice-Range, "Goettinger hoarsness diagram" (GHD) and the "Friedrich's Dysphonia Index" (FDI) were examined to investigate the quality of voice.The VHI-12 decreased from 30.4 pts. to 13.6 pts. The maximum phonation time was 6.45 s before and 13.95 s after the operation. The RBH-Scale the was lowered form 2.5 preoperative to 1.1 postoperative. The voice range increased 3.5 semi tones. Concerning the GHD the irregularity increased as well as the noise factor (1.79 pts., respective 0.86 pts.). The FDI declined 1.1 pts.Using VOX-Implants is a useful material to better the quality of life. The injection laryngoplasty with polydimethylsiloxane improves considerably the quality of voice. No complication concerning the material itself could be seen within 6 months. The results are comparable to other techniques (e.g. Thyroplasty). The decision of which material or which technique is to use must be an individual one.

Etiology of vocal fold paralysis is broad: e. g. iatrogenic/traumatic, associated with neoplasms or with systemic diseases. The cause of idiopathic paralysis is unknown. The main symptom of unilateral vocal fold paralysis is hoarseness because of a remaining glottic gap during phonation. Patients with bilateral vocal fold paralysis typically have no impairment of the voice but dyspnea. Examination of patients with an idopathic vocal fold paralysis is a CT of the vagal nerve and recurrent laryngeal nerve from skull base to neck and mediastinum. Serological tests are not obligatory. Differential diagnosis of vocal fold immobility is vocal fold paralysis/neurological causes and arthrogene causes such as arytenoid subluxation, interarytenoid adhesion and vocal fold fixation in laryngeal carcinomas. Voice therapy is a promising approach for patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis, but not all patients benefit sufficiently. Temporary vocal fold augmentation by injection medialization results in satisfactory voice quality that is comparable with a thyroplasty. Patients with bilateral vocal fold immobility show typically dyspnea requiring immediate therapy such as temporary tracheotomy or reversible laterofixation of the paralyzed vocal chord. If the paralysis persists a definitive enlargement of the glottic airway by eg. arytenoidectomy needs to be performed.

Glottal gaps can be either physiological or pathological. The latter are multifactorial, predominantly organic in origin and occasionally functional. Organic causes include vocal fold paralysis or scarring, as well as a deficiency or excess of tissue. In addition to loss of the mucosal wave, the degree of hoarseness is primarily determined by the circumferential area of the glottal gap. It is thus important to quantify the extent of glottal insufficiency. Although a patient's symptoms form the basis for treatment decisions, these may be subjective and inadequately reflected by the results of auditory-perceptual evaluation, voice analysis and voice performance tests. The therapeutic approach should always combine phonosurgery with conventional voice therapy methods. Voice therapy utilises all the resources made available by the sphincter model of the aerodigestive tract and knowledge on the mechanism of voice production. The aim of phonosurgery is medialization, reconstruction or reinnervation by injection laryngoplasty or larynx framework surgery. These different methods can be combined and often applied directly after vocal fold surgery (primary reconstruction). In conclusion, the techniques described here can be effectively employed to compensate for glottal gaps.

Dynamic rehabilitation of vocal fold paralysis (VFP) should receive more emphasis in the future. In unilateral immobility with signs of atrophy and wide glottal gap, non-selective reinnervation with ansa cervicalis may become an alternative to augmentation and thyroplasty. For bilateral VFP progress has been made in the concepts of selective reinnervation and neurostimulation (pacing). These new therapies have the potential to restore near normal respiration-without compromising the voice quality-and may contribute to the development of larynx transplantation surgery.

Scarring of the vocal folds leads to a deterioration of the highly complex microstructure with consecutively impaired vibratory pattern and glottic insufficiency. The resulting dysphonia is predominantly characterized by a reduced vocal capacity. Despite considerable progress in the understanding of the underlying pathophysiology, treatment of scarred vocal folds is still an unresolved chapter in laryngology and phonosurgery. Decisive for successful treatment is an individual, multidimensional concept that comprises the whole armamentarium of surgical and nonsurgical (e.g. voice therapy) modalities. The chosen phonosurgical method is determined by the main clinical feature: medialization techniques for treatment of glottic insufficiency, or epithelium-freeing techniques for improvement of vibration characteristics often combined with injection augmentation or implantation. In severe cases, buccal mucosa grafting can be an option. New developments include treatment with angiolytic lasers [pulse dye laser, PDL; potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) laser], or techniques of tissue engineering. However, despite promising results with in vitro experiments, animal studies and first clinical trials, application in clinical routine has not yet been achieved.

There is a wide variety of devices and materials to be implanted into the human larynx. Some are intended to remain only for a period of time, like laryngeal stents. If removal is not intended the device meets the definition for a medical implant. The majority of implants is used for the treatment of unilateral vocal fold immobility. There a 2 types of implants serving this purpose: Implants in a stricter sense are devices of solid material, which are brought into the paraglottic space through a window in the laryngeal framework (medialization thyroplasty). Several different products are presented in this review. In contrast, there are different substances available for endoscopic injection into the paralyzed vocal fold (injection laryngoplasty). Since some of these substances show a corpuscular consistency and a high viscosity they need to be deposited into the lateral paraglottic space. Therefore, the term "injectable implants" has been coined for these materials. The different substances available are discussed in detail in this review. Laryngeal stents are primarily used in the early postoperative phase after open reconstruction of the larynx. The different devices available on the market are described with their specific characteristics and intended use.