Cigarette Smoke Exposure to Pig Larynx in an Inhalation Chamber.
Xinxin Liu, Allison Mustonen, Wei Zheng and 2 others
PMID 29983221WHAT IT FOUND
Awake pigs breathing smoke from 15 cigarettes a day for 20 days coughed more and had mild vocal fold swelling.
Inflammation markers did not show a clear difference. This is an animal model, so it does not show what happens in people.
Key findings
01Cough counts were significantly greater for the 15cd group, range 13 to 24 coughs, than for the 3cd group, range 1 to 6 coughs.
02The 15cd group had mild vocal fold edema compared with the 3cd group.
03Inflammatory gene expression and protein levels did not differ significantly between the 3cd and 15cd groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The subjects were pigs, not human voice patients. Only six pigs were in each exposure group. The 20 day exposure may have been too short to reveal inflammatory gene or protein changes. Coughing itself may have contributed to the vocal fold swelling, so the swelling cannot be pinned only to smoke.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that smoke exposure causes measurable vocal fold inflammation in human patients. The study used pigs, and inflammatory gene and protein measures did not differ between groups.