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Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate changes in vocal symptoms in relation to estrogen level in women undergoing in vitro fertilization., Materials and Methods: A total of 31 women were enrolled in this study. The following vocal symptoms were investigated: vocal tiring or fatigue, vocal straining, throat clearing, lump sensation, hoarseness, and aphonia (or loss of voice). The severity of these symptoms was graded from 0 to 4, where 0 means absence of the symptom and 3 means severe symptom presence. The frequency of these symptoms was evaluated in the first visit at presentation; second visit, 4 to 5 days after ovarian stimulation; and third visit, 8 to 10 days after stimulation. In the second and third visits, the estradiol levels were measured., Results: The mean age was 32.33 ± 4.80 years. Ten of the 31 patients had at least 1 vocal symptom. The most common vocal symptom in all 3 visits was throat clearing, with an incidence of 22.6% in the first and second visits and 19.4% in the third visit. This was followed by vocal fatigue or tiring and lump sensation, with an incidence of 9.68% for both. The incidence of all the vocal symptoms as well as their severity did not change throughout the visits, except for throat clearing, which has decreased in the third visit but not significantly (22.6% vs 19.4%, P = 1). Subjects with vocal symptoms had lower estradiol level compared with those with no vocal symptoms; however, the difference was not statistically significant (P = .108 and .267, respectively)., Conclusion: Subjects undergoing in vitro fertilization do not experience changes in their vocal symptoms when present, except for throat clearing. However, those with vocal symptoms have lower levels of estradiol compared with those with no vocal symptoms., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

We conducted a study to determine the prevalence of vocal symptoms in snorers. A total of 30 patients with a history of snoring were investigated for the presence or absence of three vocal symptoms immediately after they awoke from sleep: hoarseness, voice weakness, and other changes in voice quality. All patients were also asked to complete a voice-related quality-of-life (V-RQOL) questionnaire. Findings were compared with those of an age- and sex-matched control group of 30 nonsnorers. The most common vocal symptom in the snoring group was hoarseness, which occurred in 11 patients (36.7%); voice weakness and other voice quality changes were present in 8 snorers each (26.7%). In the control group, the most common vocal symptom was voice weakness, which was present in 7 subjects (23.3%); 5 controls (16.7%) experienced other changes in voice quality, and 3 controls (10.0%) experienced hoarseness. The difference between the prevalence of hoarseness in the two groups was statistically significant (p = 0.030), and the differences in voice weakness and other voice quality changes were not. The mean V-RQOL score was 87.50 ± 26.89 in the snoring group and 96.00 ± 5.82 in the control group-again, not a statistically significant difference. Finally, we found no association between any of the three vocal symptoms and the prevalence of mouth breathing, the level of snoring loudness, and the mean number of snores per minute. We conclude that snorers are more likely to experience hoarseness than are nonsnorers.