Teflon injection of the vocal cords under general anaesthesia

Introduction Unilateral paralysis of the vocal cords immobilized in the lateral position causes many distressing symptoms, i.e. dysphonia, aspiration, weak cough reflex and inability to laugh. Many surgical procedures have been prescribed for treating this condition but the simplest and the most effective method is the intracordal injection of Teflon, which displaces the paralysed vocal cord to the midline enabling the functioning cord to meet the paralysed cord and effectively to close the glottis. Prior to the use of Teflon. Briining (1911) employed hard paraffin using a special syringe. This method was abandoned as paraffin was reported to cause paraffinoma, embolization and sloughing. Arnold (1955) recommended the use of cartilage paste, and since then many other substances have been used including heteregenous bovine paste, tantalum oxide, tantalum powder, silicon and hydrogen gel implant (Nassar, 1977).