People who come to Mayo Clinic for help with voice disorders, airway and swallowing issues, or throat (laryngeal) cancer are diagnosed and treated by a multidisciplinary medical team dedicated to providing thoughtful, expert, individualized care.
When you visit Mayo Clinic for throat or voice disorders, you'll undergo comprehensive evaluation by the laryngology team, which may include a speech-language pathologist with specialty training in voice and swallowing disorders. Appropriate treatment options are discussed and you and your care team decide how to proceed. Treatment may include surgery, voice therapy, medications or other options.
Mayo Clinic's campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota offer specialized services for voice-related conditions in multidisciplinary voice clinics. People who go to the Voice Clinic at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, receive comprehensive diagnosis and treatment, with access to focused vocal therapy. Voice therapy is available for a variety of issues, including muscle tension, hoarseness, professional voice, and therapy for singers.
Advanced diagnosis and treatment
Our doctors use the latest techniques and technology to diagnose and treat voice, airway and swallowing disorders and throat (laryngeal) cancer. Some of these advanced techniques are available at very few medical institutions. They include a first-of-its-kind larynx and trachea transplantation program at Mayo Clinic's campus in Arizona, laryngeal phonosurgery, office-based laser treatment, laryngeal onabotulinumtoxinA (Botox) therapy, and focused vocal therapy. Our doctors also offer voice therapy, smoking cessation, medication, injections, surgery or a combination of these approaches. They're also experienced in microsurgery, carbon dioxide laser treatment and potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) laser treatment. KTP laser treatment allows the removal of vocal cord growths while preserving nearby healthy tissue. This procedure may be done in the doctor's office or in an operating room.
Your treatment team
At Mayo Clinic, ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctors (otolaryngologists) consult with other specialists to develop a treatment plan that's right for you. Depending on your situation, experts on your team might include allergists, medical oncologists, gastroenterologists, pulmonologists, radiation oncologists, neurologists, speech-language pathologists, radiologists and voice therapists. If you need help quitting smoking, Mayo Clinic offers stop-smoking services, including an intensive treatment program through the Nicotine Dependence Center at Mayo Clinic's campus in Minnesota.
When you are seen by the laryngology and voice disorders specialty group, a multidisciplinary team of experts works together so that you get exactly the care you need. And the team's collaborative approach to care means efficient care. In many cases, people are evaluated and have treatment scheduled the same week.
The clinic's laryngology specialists are skilled and continually trained in the latest medical, surgical and behavioral techniques for diagnosing and managing voice and swallowing disorders.
Nationally recognized expertise
Mayo Clinic's long tradition of excellence in laryngology and rhinology began in 1906, when Dr. Charles H. Mayo trained the team's first physician leader. Now Mayo Clinic specialists treat more than 12,000 people with voice disorders each year. Our doctors are recognized as experts in caring for people with all types of laryngology problems and voice disorders.
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for ear, nose and throat by U.S. News & World Report.
Services
Our laryngology and voice disorders specialists treat the following conditions and offer a full range of services and procedures, though not all are available at each location. Please confirm when you request an appointment.
- Acoustic and aerodynamic analyses of voice
- Airway reconstruction
- Botox injections
- Carbon dioxide laser treatment
- Cricopharyngeal muscle dysfunction
- Dysphagia
- Dysphonia
- Electromyography
- Endoscopic surgery for Zenker's diverticulum
- Esophagoscopy
- Flexible endoscopic evaluation of swallowing and sensation
- Hoarseness
- KTP laser treatment, in-office
- Laryngoceles/saccular cysts
- Laryngoscopy
- Laryngotracheal stenosis
- Minimally invasive surgery
- Professional voice
- Paradoxical vocal fold motion
- Pharyngeal manometry
- Singing voice
- Speech-language pathology evaluation and voice therapy
- Stroboscopy
- Swallowing disorders
- Throat (laryngeal) cancer
- Thyroplasty
- Tracheostomy
- Transnasal esophagoscopy
- Ultrasound
- Videofluoroscopic evaluation of swallowing (modified barium swallow study)
- Videolaryngoscopy
- Vocal cord cysts, nodules and polyps
- Vocal cord or fold injection
- Vocal cord or fold paralysis
- Vocal cord scarring
- Vocal tremor
- Voice and swallowing therapeutic exercises
- Voice disorders, including behavioral and neurological disorders
- Zenker's diverticulum
See physician staff