ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Otorinolaringologia 2019 March;69(1):26-9

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-6621.18.02204-X

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Interobserver variability for tongue motility assessment

Giuseppe RIVA ✉, Mattia RAVERA, Silvia SAPINO, Giulia ELIA, Giancarlo PECORARI

Division of Otorhinolaryngology, Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

BACKGROUND: Surgery for tongue cancer induces impairment of the tongue motility. It has consequences on speech articulation and swallowing. The Tongue Motility Assessment (TMA) is a new instrument for the evaluation of patients with oral cancer. The aim of this study was to evaluate the interobserver variability of the TMA in a group of patients treated for oral cancer.
METHODS: Three observers evaluated the tongue motility of 22 patients surgically treated for tongue cancer. The TMA consisted on the evaluation of 9 tongue positions with a 3-point scale. A mean total score was calculated for each patient. The Kendall’s W test was used to evaluate the agreement among the observers.
RESULTS: The most altered positions were protrusion with elevation, and protrusion with lateralization. The concordance was excellent (Kendall’s W coefficient higher than 0.80) for near all the positions. Only retroflexion showed a good concordance (W=0.770).
CONCLUSIONS: The TMA can be useful to evaluate patients surgically treated for tongue cancer. It has an adequate interobserver agreement and it is a reliable and repeatable test to analyze tongue motility.

KEY WORDS: Mouth neoplasm - Tongue neoplasms - Speech - Deglutition