Paucity of literature on surgery to alter vocal pitch in male transsexuals
Voice Surgery » Paucity of literature on surgery to alter vocal pitch in male transsexuals
To date there is a paucity of literature on surgery to alter vocal pitch in male transsexuals. The currently available pitch-rasing surgical technique does not yield .a long term result and the resultant pitch is not high enough to simulate the female voice. We investigated a new procedure to alter vocal pitch. The principle is to shorten both vocal cords by composite resection of vertical strip of the anterior thyroid cartilage along with a segment. This resulted in a satisfactisfactory pitch alteration from an average of 147 HZ. preoporatively to 315 HZ. The longest follow-up time was 6 years. In conclusion, thyro-vocal reduction is an effective method for alteration of voice in male to female transsexual with a long lasting result.
Since transsexualism has become accepted as a part of global society, a variety of medical and surgical approachs have become available for them, mainly for physical alteration to conform with their conceptual sex. Among these, male-to-female transsexual alteration has predominated over the reverse. Female hormones both oral and periodic parenteral forms, are widely used. It is widely believed that female hormones can make the skin finer and smoother, as well as enlarge the breasts and create a more female character. The most common surgical procedures requested from this group of people are blebpharoplasty, eye brow and eye lash micropigmentation, rhinoplasty, mandibular angle contouring, breast augmentation, shaping of the anterior prominence of the thyroid cartilage, and sex organ conversion. The combination of these procedures unquestionably can give them a female appearance, but unfortunately their, masculine voice often embarrasses them in public. Nevertheless, voice or vocal pitch intervention is among the least common requests, simply because they were unaware of the availability of any technique.
There is a paucity of technique relevant to vocal pitch conversion in male transsexual in the literature. The current approach was aimed primarily at raising vocal pitch in abnormaly low pitched female patients. The results were usually transient, as vocal pitch often returned to its original level in time, and the original pitch increase was not great enough to reach the female range. Moreover, some techniques even accentuated the already prominent thyroid cartilage. This article reports on a new method to address these problems.