Wandell GM, Law AB, Maxin A, Ha VT, Wilson EC, Nash MG, Merati AL, Whipple ME, Meyer TK. Defining the Performance of Clinician's Ability to Screen for Laryngeal Mass From Voice.
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2023;
168:1371-1380. [PMID:
36939403 DOI:
10.1002/ohn.206]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2022] [Revised: 10/12/2022] [Accepted: 11/03/2022] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
Defining a clinician's ability to perceptually identify mass from voice will inform the feasibility, design priorities, and performance standards for tools developed to screen for laryngeal mass from voice. This study defined clinician ability of and examined the impact of expertise on screening for laryngeal mass from voice.
STUDY DESIGN
Task comparison study between experts and nonexperts rating voices for the probability of a laryngeal mass.
SETTING
Online, remote.
METHODS
Experts (voice-focused speech-language pathologists and otolaryngologists) and nonexperts (general medicine providers) rated 5-s/i/voice samples (with pathology defined by laryngoscopy) for the probability of laryngeal mass via an online survey. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) estimated interrater and intrarater reliability. Diagnostic performance metrics were calculated. A linear mixed effects model examined the impact of expertise and pathology on ratings.
RESULTS
Forty clinicians (21 experts and 19 nonexperts) evaluated 344 voice samples. Experts outperformed nonexperts, with a higher area under the curve (70% vs 61%), sensitivity (49% vs 36%), and specificity (83% vs 77%) (all comparisons p < .05). Interrater reliability was fair for experts and poor for nonexperts (ICC: 0.48 vs 0.34), while intrarater reliability was excellent and good, respectively (ICC: 0.9 and 0.6). The main effects of expertise and underlying pathology were significant in the linear model (p < .001).
CONCLUSION
Clinicians demonstrate inadequate performance screening for laryngeal mass from voice to use auditory perception for dysphonia triage. Experts' superior performance indicates that there is acoustic information in a voice that may be utilized to detect laryngeal mass based on voice.
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