Temporal Relationships Between Hyoid Burst and Pharyngeal Pressure Events.

Purpose: This study examined temporal relationships between hyoid burst and pharyngeal pressure events and evaluated how reference point, age, and sex influence pharyngeal swallowing coordination. We hypothesized that (a) latency between hyoid burst and pharyngeal pressure events increases with age, (b) males have longer event latency, and (c) pharyngeal pressure timing is less variable using a manometric reference point than hyoid burst.

Method: We analyzed ten 10-ml thin liquid swallows from 104 (42 males) healthy adults (aged 21-89 years) under simultaneous high-resolution pharyngeal manometry and videofluoroscopy. Latency between hyoid burst and pharyngeal pressure events was measured. Latency range was used to describe variability. Repeated-measures analysis of variance assessed age and sex effects on latency from reference points to pharyngeal pressure events.

Results: Latency was not affected by age or sex (p ≥ .05). Significant main effects of pressure event on latency were found for hyoid burst and manometric reference point (p < .001), with similar event order. There was a significant Reference Point × Pharyngeal Pressure Event interaction effect for latency range (p = .016); ranges from hyoid burst were more variable than from manometric reference point (p ≤ .02), except from the velopharyngeal maximum pressure time point (p = .92).

Conclusions: Relative order and timing of pharyngeal pressure events are not impacted by age or sex, suggesting stability of pressure coordination with age and no sex differences. Videofluoroscopy may be less precise than high-resolution pharyngeal manometry for latency range assessment due to subjectivity and lower temporal resolution.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29991907.