Currently, there has been a significant increase in the number of patients presenting with delayed stages of laryngeal cancer. Laryngeal cancer is one of a few oncologic diseases in which the 5 year survival rate has decreased over the past 40 years, from 66% to 63%. This may be attributed to more conservative treatment protocols, as well as factors that might delay the patient’s follow-up like motivation and access to medical centers, lack of remote screening tools, etc. Late diagnosis of laryngeal cancer inevitably leads to significantly more complex treatment and poorer outcomes. Laryngeal cancer patients must undergo extended surgery, performing partial or total laryngectomy. Such surgery leaves the patient without the larynx, the main part of the vocal apparatus, and their vocal function is significantly impaired, if at all. Long-term rehabilitation of voice and speech function is required, with often unsatisfactory results. The planned project proposes to address the handicap of laryngeal cancer patients by improving the assessment of substitution voicing and by ensuring the effectiveness of voice rehabilitation after advanced oncological laryngeal surgery. The main objective of the project is to develop artificial intelligence-based algorithms for automatic voice enhancement analysis for patients after oncological laryngeal surgery. The developed algorithms will be clinically tested in the largest university hospital in Lithuania – Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) – Kauno klinikos.
Project funding:
Projects funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (RCL), Projects carried out by researchers’ teams
Project results:
Algorithms for automatic voice enhancement analysis for patients after oncological laryngeal surgery.
Period of project implementation: 2023-04-01 - 2026-03-31
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
Project partners: Lithuanian University of Health Sciences
