Force Sensor Study

This research is to understand more about the forces that are involved on the tongue and other oropharyngeal structures during laryngeal surgery. This information will be used to determine if these forces can affect outcomes (pain, numbness, taste, etc) and whether factors such as procedure type, surgeon experience (i.e. resident, fellow, attending), and choice of surgical equipment affect these forces. This information may be used to reduce these forces and prevent these issues from happening during certain laryngeal surgeries.

For the first 50 patients, force measurements will be taken and correlated to outcome measures . Surgeons will be blinded to the force measurements intra-operatively.

For the next 50 patients, surgeons will be given force measurements in real-time intra-operatively allowing adjustments to be made. The impact of this adjustment on outcomes will be determined.