A Rare Cardiac Cause of Hoarseness of Voice

• Main Authors: Berekat I, Azzu A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2010-01-01
• Series: Libyan Journal of Medicine
• Subjects: Cardiac; Hoarseness of Voice
• Online Access: http://2657.indexcopernicus.com/fulltxt.php?ICID=897336

To The Editor: Hoarseness of voice caused by the damage of the recurrent laryngeal nerve as a result of cardiac causes is known as Ortner’s or cardio-vocal syndrome. This syndrome was described by Nobert Ortner, an Austrian physician, in 1897 [1]. Initially it wasthought to be due to the enlargement of the left atrium as a result of severe mitral stenosis in rheumatic heart disease. However, it wasfound, later, to be caused by other conditions rather than rheumatic heart disease. The accepted mechanism of this syndrome is thecompression of the recurrent laryngeal nerve from the enlargement of the pulmonary artery in the window area between the aorta andligamentum arteiosum. This condition was quite common at the beginning of last century due to a high incidence of untreated rheumatic heart disease. Although,it is very rare to see itnowadays, it still poses a treatment challenge. We would like to share our experience in diagnosing and treating a patient with Ortner’s syndrome caused by severe mitral valve prolapse. To the best of our knowledge Ortner’s caused by mitral valve prolapse hasbeen reported only once.