Costs and effects of tracheoesophageal speech compared with esophageal speech in laryngectomy patients

: The hospital costs and the effects on speech are compared for tracheoesophageal (TE) speech and esophageal (E) speech in laryngectomy patients. TE-speech is more intelligible and the rehabilitation is faster (four versus nine months), but it is more expensive for the hospital. E-speech needs more speech rehabilitation sessions (average of 23,422 BF/patient) than TE-speech (7,157 BF). TE-speech involves primary (6,192 BF) or secondary placement (25,357 BF), replacement (average of 19,443 BF/patient/year) and in about ten percent closure of the fistula (39,135 BF/patient) and switching over to E-speech. On the basis of these data the expected average costs per patient can be calculated. These are definitely higher for the TE-speech than for E-speech.