The endoscopic evaluation of the oral phase of swallowing (Oral-FEES, O-FEES): a pilot study of the clinical use of a new procedure.

The endoscopic evaluation of the oral phase of swallowing (Oral-FEES, O-FEES): a pilot study of the clinical use of a new procedure.
Acta Otorhinolaryngol Ital. 2017 Jun;37(3):201-206
Authors: Farneti D, Fattori B, Bastiani L
Abstract
Oral FEES (O-FEES) is an endoscopic procedure conceived to directly visualise the oral phase of swallowing. In the perspective of clinical use, the feasibility, safety and acceptability of O-FEES has been evaluated. Subsequently, the procedure was compared with the radiological gold standard. The acceptability of O-FEES was compared to that of FEES using a 10 point questionnaire submitted to a sample of 52 outpatients complaining of swallowing disorders. Repeated measure analysis of variance (rm-ANOVA) models were used to test the mean difference of acceptability in the same subjects after FEES and O-FEES. Subsequently, another sample of 8 male outpatients underwent a simultaneous O-FEES and videofluoroscopic study (VFSS). The inter-rater reliability using 10 radiological landmarks, compared to O-FEES, was blindly determined between two raters. Inter-rater agreement between the two judges for O-FEES and VFSS scores was assessed with the single score intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Differences between FEES and O-FEES answers for each question and among all the items considered overall were statistically significant (rm-ANOVA; F-statistic p < 0.001). The inter-rater agreement concerning endo...

Source: Acta Otorhinolaryngologica Italica - May 19, 2017 Category: ENT & OMF Tags: Acta Otorhinolaryngol Ital Source Type: research