Canadian scientists developed an injectable therapy that permanently repairs vocal cord scarring — professional singers and teachers who had lost their voice to scar tissue spoke and sang normally again within twelve weeks.

 

Canadian scientists developed an injectable therapy that permanently repairs vocal cord scarring — professional singers and teachers who had lost their voice to scar tissue spoke and sang normally again within twelve weeks.

Vocal cord scarring — from surgical procedures, intubation trauma, radiation, or inflammatory laryngitis — destroys the layered microstructure of the vocal fold lamina propria, replacing the organized extracellular matrix with disorganized collagen scar. The lamina propria's precise layered viscoelastic architecture — superficial, intermediate, and deep layers with different stiffness — is responsible for the mucosal wave that produces normal voice quality. Scar tissue makes the vocal fold stiff and non-pliable, producing hoarse, breathy, or absent voice.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia and VocalTech developed VoiceFix — an in-office injection of a hyaluronic acid-collagen composite hydrogel incorporating decorin proteoglycan — the molecule responsible for organizing collagen fibril diameter and spacing in normal lamina propria. Decorin-functionalized hyaluronic acid provides immediate hydration and viscoelasticity while simultaneously directing fibroblast remodeling of residual scar collagen into organized fibrillar architecture.

In 36 patients with confirmed vocal cord scarring from various causes — post-surgical, radiation, intubation — VoiceFix injection under laryngoscopic guidance produced stroboscopic evidence of mucosal wave restoration in 29 patients at 12 weeks. Voice handicap index scores normalized in 26 patients. Professional vocal performers returned to full performance in 22 cases.

Source: University of British Columbia & VocalTech, The Laryngoscope, 2024

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