Laryngeal involvement in rheumatoid arthritis. A clinical, laryngoscopic, and computerized tomographic study.

Laryngeal involvement was evaluated in 45 patients with moderately severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA). RA duration and severity, prior laryngeal symptoms, and abnormalities detected by concurrent indirect laryngoscopy (IL) and computerized tomography (CT) were noted and correlated with changes of basilar interstitial fibrosis (BPF) found by chest radiograph. Thirty-two percent had abnormalities detected by IL, 54% had abnormalities by CT, and 36% had BPF on chest radiographs. Comparison of these groups revealed: only two symptoms (sore throat and difficulty during inspiration) were predictive of abnormalities detected by IL; no symptoms predicted abnormalities on percentage of RA patients even in the absence of symptoms; IL tends to detect mucosal and gross functional abnormalities while CT detects structural lesions; BPF shown on chest radiographs in RA patients does not appear to be correlated with cricoarytenoid arthritis as defined by IL and CT.