Egophony

Egophony (British English, aegophony) is an increased resonance of voice sounds[1] heard when auscultating the lungs, often caused by lung consolidation and fibrosis. It is due to enhanced transmission of high-frequency sound across fluid, such as in abnormal lung tissue, with lower frequencies filtered out. It results in a high-pitched nasal or bleating quality in the affected person's voice.

Technique

While listening to the lungs with a stethoscope, the patient is asked to pronounce the modern English (more generally, post-Great Vowel Shift) long-E vowel sound.

Interpretation

Stethoscopic auscultation of a clear lung field during this articulation will detect a sound matching that received through normal hearing; that is, the sound articulated by the patient will be clearly transmitted through the lung field and heard unchanged by the clinician. When the lung field is consolidated (filled with liquid or other solid mass such as tumor or fungus ball), the patient's spoken English long E will sound like a "pure-voweled" long E or a modern English long A without the latter's usual offglide. This effect occurs because the solid mass in the lung field will disproportionately dampen the articulated sound's acoustic overtones higher in the harmonic series, transmuting the English long E, in which higher overtones predominate strongly, to a sound (the English long A) in which higher overtones predominate only slightly, i.e., to a markedly lesser degree than in the former sound. This finding is referred to in clinical contexts as the "E to A transition." If associated with fever, shortness of breath, and cough, this E to A transition indicates pneumonia.

Somewhat related, bronchophony, a form of pectoriloquy, is a conventional respiratory examination whereby the clinician auscultates the chest while asking the patient to repeat the word "ninety-nine". Better phrases in English include "toy boat”, "Scooby Doo", and “blue balloons".[2] In the UK, regional variation with clinicians from Edinburgh to Glasgow use the phrase "one-one-one" due to its more rounded sound.

Similar terms are bronchophony and whispered pectoriloquy. The mechanism is the same; that is, fluid or consolidation causes the sound of the voice to be transmitted loudly to the periphery of the lungs where it is usually not heard.

Causes

Etymology

Egophony comes from the Greek word for "goat," (αἴξ aix, aig-) in reference to the bleating quality of the sound.[3]

gollark: Presumably you also need some tools and materials.
gollark: <@113673208296636420> Not everyone has electrical engineer skillz™.
gollark: If suddenly everyone had half as many liras but you could buy twice as much stuff per lira that would probably be fine.
gollark: The value of the currency isn't that important, it's more how it changes and how much some amount of the average wage buys.
gollark: It's a pretty terrible country right now, yes.

See also

References
  1. "egophony" at Dorland's Medical Dictionary
  2. Salvatore Mangione (2000). Physical diagnosis secrets. Philadelphia: Hanley & Belfus. p. 330. ISBN 1-56053-164-9.
  3. Sapira JD (1995). "About egophony". Chest. 108 (3): 865–7. doi:10.1378/chest.108.3.865. PMID 7656646.
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