What We Offer You for Voice and Swallowing Care
- Specialized expertise in diagnosing and treating all types of voice and swallowing disorders. Go to Conditions Treated
- Innovative surgical and nonsurgical treatment options that specialists customize to each person's needs and goals. Go to Treatments
- Clinical trials that provide early access to promising therapies not available at other voice and swallowing centers. Go to Clinical Trials
- A multidisciplinary team of world-class providers who work together to develop your care plan. Go to Your Care Team
- Convenient access to the providers, treatment, and support services you need. Go to Connecting to Care
Conditions Treated
At Stanford Health Care, we offer comprehensive care for all conditions affecting your ability to speak, breathe, and swallow. Our skilled specialists use advanced diagnostic tools to pinpoint the cause of your difficulties and develop an effective treatment plan.
We care for people with a wide range of swallowing and voice conditions, including:
Stanford Health Care is one of a few centers nationwide offering voice-sparing surgery for laryngeal cancer.
Pain or difficulty with swallowing, called dysphagia, can make it challenging to eat or drink, impacting your nutrition and quality of life. Dysphagia can have many causes, including:
- Cricopharyngeal dysfunction: When the cricopharyngeal muscle at the top of the esophagus doesn't relax, preventing food or liquid from going through
- Esophageal cancer: One or more cancerous tumors in the esophagus (food tube)
- Esophageal stenosis (esophageal stricture): An abnormal narrowing or tightening of the esophagus, making it difficult to swallow
- Vocal cord paralysis: When one or both vocal cords don't move properly, making swallowing difficult or allowing food or liquids to enter the trachea and lungs
- Zenker's diverticulum: A pouch that develops in the upper esophagus and possibly collects food and liquids, making swallowing difficult
Issues affecting the larynx (voice box) and trachea (windpipe) can create voice changes and make breathing difficult. We have specialized expertise in:
- Laryngeal cancer, also called throat cancer: A disease that starts in the larynx, the part of the throat that contains the vocal cords
- Laryngopharyngeal reflux: Stomach acid moves up the esophagus to the throat, causing hoarseness and irritation
- Subglottic stenosis: A narrowing of the upper airway between the vocal cords and trachea (windpipe), causing hoarseness or shortness of breath
- Tracheal stenosis: When the trachea is inflamed or has scar tissue, making it too narrow for comfortable breathing
We treat all conditions affecting the vocal cords, including:
- Spasmodic dysphonia (laryngeal dystonia): When the larynx's muscles spasm, causing the voice to break and have a strained or strangled sound
- Laryngitis: Inflammation of the vocal cords due to excessive voice use, infections, inhaled irritants, and gastroesophageal reflux (GERD)
- Laryngeal papillomatosis: Benign (noncancerous), wart-like tumors inside the larynx caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV)
- Vocal cord lesions: Benign growths commonly called vocal fold lesions, cysts, vocal nodules, and polyps
- Contact ulcers: Sores on the vocal cords caused by excessive forceful speech or GERD
- Leukoplakia and erythroplakia: Thick patches on the vocal folds that may become cancer. Leukoplakia spots appear white, and erythroplakia are red.
- Granulomas: Benign, sometimes painful masses that grow in response to irritation or trauma
- Hemorrhage: Bleeding within the vocal cord, usually due to prolonged coughing or screaming
- Scarring: Damage to the vibrating tissues of the vocal fold due to surgery or a complication
Certain brain and nerve conditions impact the ability to talk and swallow. We offer compassionate care for people with:
- Parkinson’s disease: A disorder of the nervous system that impacts movement, often causing tremors
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease): A disease in which the brain and spine cells that control movement deteriorate, causing muscles to weaken
- Stroke: When the brain doesn’t receive the oxygen-rich blood it needs, and brain cells start to die
We help transgender people who want their voices to align with their gender identity.
When you seek our care for voice and swallowing services, you have access to a vast breadth and depth of treatment options. Our team is skilled in the latest methods and technology for excellent outcomes.
Our goal is to restore as much voice and swallowing function as possible so you can return to your normal activities. Depending on your needs, we tap into specialized expertise throughout the Stanford Health Care system.
Voice therapy and swallowing rehabilitation may be part of your treatment plan, either alone or combined with other treatments. Our speech-language pathologists have decades of experience using advanced techniques.
Voice therapy is a tool for preventing or recovering from voice disorders. Depending on your condition and goals, your speech-language pathologist teaches you exercises to improve or change your vocal abilities, including:
- Breathing for diaphragm control
- Stretching and massage to ease tension
- Sounds to make the vocal cords vibrate
Our speech-language pathologists use a variety of methods to help improve your swallowing, including:
- Training on how to sit or position your head while eating
- Treatments for the muscles that chew and swallow
- Ideas for safer and more efficient swallowing
- Recommendations for foods or drinks with different textures for easier swallowing
Your doctor may prescribe medications that can reduce swelling and inflammation in the throat, providing you relief from symptoms. If GERD causes or contributes to your throat problem, your doctor may prescribe medicine to manage stomach acid.
Treatments delivered to the vocal cords by injection (shot) can help reduce or eliminate symptoms. Injection treatments we offer include:
- In-office vocal fold injection augmentation: When the vocal folds do not close properly, we inject a filler material to enlarge the cords and close the gap.
- In-office steroid injections: Steroids can help reduce vocal cord inflammation, lesions, and scarring to help provide relief.
- Botulinum toxin injections: We inject this naturally occurring substance into vocal muscles to relax them and reduce spasmodic dysphonia symptoms.
Our providers use high-energy light beams to reduce or remove benign lesions or scar tissue. Laser treatment is a quick, in-office procedure.
If your treatment plan includes surgery, you can be confident in receiving world-class care from board-certified surgeons. We offer a wide range of minimally invasive, microsurgical and traditional surgical procedures that can:
- Dilate (open) the airway or esophagus
- Promote better breathing (tracheostomy)
- Provide structure to the larynx and vocal folds (laryngeal framework surgery)
- Remove vocal cord lesions and cancerous tumors
- Repair muscles involved in speaking, breathing, and swallowing
- Transform your voice pitch to match your gender identity (gender-affirming voice care)
While our experts treat your voice or swallowing disorder, we also focus on your overall wellness. Your care team offers a range of support services to assist you and your family throughout your treatment.
Innovation Through Clinical Research
As a leading academic and research institution, we always strive to find new techniques and apply the latest and best technology to your treatment. Specialists at Stanford Health Care ENT work with each other and teams nationwide to spark groundbreaking research. We are committed to bringing you clinical trials that test new and better ways to diagnose, treat, and manage ENT conditions. Participating in a trial may give you access to the latest ENT therapies before they are widely available.
Clinical trials are research studies that evaluate a new medical approach, device, drug, or other treatment. As a Stanford Health Care patient, you may have access to the latest advanced clinical trials.
Open trials refer to studies that are currently recruiting participants or that may recruit participants in the near future. Closed trials are not currently enrolling, but similar studies may open in the future.
Your Circle of Care
Difficulties with speaking, breathing, and swallowing can be unsettling. We are here to guide you through every challenge using our Circle of Care approach. Your care team supports you and places your needs at the center of every decision. Our specialists work together to tailor treatments to your needs. Depending on your condition, you will be cared for by our laryngologists (head and neck surgeons with advanced training in voice and swallowing disorders) and advanced practice providers. Together, we prioritize your overall health and give you renewed hope for a better quality of life.
Through teamwork, our doctors continually advance our approach to diagnosis and treatment and improve the care experience. At weekly review meetings, experts from multiple disciplines review cases that require more complex recommendations.
Our extended care team embodies the same cooperative spirit to provide support for all your individual physical, emotional, and daily living needs. Our goal is to maximize treatment success while minimizing the impact that a condition or disease and its treatment can have on your life.
Your Doctors and Providers
Laryngologist
A laryngologist is a head and neck surgeon specializing in medical and surgical care for voice and swallowing conditions and related structures.
View All {0} LaryngologistsAdvanced Practice Provider
Our skilled advanced practice providers (APPs) specialize in diagnosing and treating voice, breathing, and swallowing disorders. They see patients independently and occasionally alongside your doctor. APPs can give you a thorough exam, write prescriptions, and help prevent or treat any issues. Our APPs meet weekly to discuss patient needs.
View All {0} Advanced Practice Provider DoctorsExtended Care Team
Nurses and Nurse Coordinators (RNs)
Nurses and nurse coordinators are registered nurses who coordinate your care. They guide you from your first contact through follow-up care and help you find counseling, financial, and other support services.
View All {0} Nurse Practitioner - InpatientsCare Coordinators
Care coordinators provide you with information and assistance before and during your appointments.
- Medical Assistant: Medical assistants work with our team to help provide care. They may prepare you for an examination, assist your doctor, or take your vital signs before your appointment.
- Patient Care Coordinator: Our care coordinators help you schedule appointments and access your lab results. They are your first line of contact before you see your provider and will guide you during your care.
- Patient Access Representative: Patient access representatives can answer your questions about health insurance coverage, help you apply for health insurance, and refer you to our financial counselors.
Research Coordinators
Our doctors participate in research efforts to advance the understanding and treatment of voice, breathing, and swallowing disorders. Research coordinators help find patients who may be eligible to participate in clinical research trials.
View All {0} Nurse Practitioner - InpatientsSupport Services
Part of your care involves managing your overall well-being. We offer you a wide array of services to help support and encourage you through your treatment and recovery.
We make access to care as simple as possible. We anticipate what you need and provide support when you need it. Our network of locations puts our services within your reach. User-friendly digital health tools help you stay connected with your care team. We accept most insurance plans and offer discounted transportation, short-stay options, and international travel and translation services. We help make sense of the details, so you can make decisions that are right for you.
Care for voice and swallowing disorders is accessible and convenient at Stanford Health Care. Our scheduling staff can coordinate your appointments if needed, so that you can see multiple providers during a single trip.
For Referring Physicians
PHYSICIAN HELPLINE
Fax: 650-320-9443
Monday–Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m.
Stanford Health Care provides comprehensive services to refer and track patients, as well as the latest information and news for physicians and office staff. For help with all referral needs and questions, visit Referral Information.
You may also submit a web referral or complete a referral form and fax it to 650-320-9443 or email the Referral Center at ReferralCenter@stanfordhealthcare.org.
HOW TO REFER
Fax or email a referral form with supporting documentation to 650-320-9443 or ReferralCenter@stanfordhealthcare.org.
- Send referrals online
- Place radiology and lab orders
- View referral status
- Access medical records