4K monitor reveals finer details of vocal tract structure
Otolaryngology and phonetics expert shares his experience of using a Sony 4K monitor for treating patients with voice problems.
- Voice specialist required high-quality video monitor to assess patients’ vocal chord problems and discuss treatment options
- Difficulty in accurately viewing small lesions in the vocal tract
- Sony 4K medical monitors display slow-motion images of vocal chords captured with stroboscopic camera – Sony 4K medical monitors display slow-motion images of vocal chords captured with stroboscopic camera
- Monitors upscale HD camera images to 4K resolution
- 4K monitors give more realistic, ‘three dimensional’ view of camera images for doctor and patient
- Faster evaluation of patient treatment methods
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My examinations have become much easier to conduct. In particular, it’s possible to understand the locations of protruded lesions in three dimensional terms. This makes it possible to plan treatment methods faster, such as whether surgery is appropriate.
Dr Daigo Komazawa
Voice Health Centre Director
Treating human voice problems
Voice Health Centre Director Dr Daigo Komazawa is an otolaryngologist, specialising in the field of phonetics. A trained singer and music lover, he’s particularly interested in the treatment of issues related to the human voice.
“Vocal cord vibrations are undulations that occur very quickly, hundreds of times each second. I examine these movements in slow motion using a stroboscope. When observing protruding lesions – like vocal cord nodes and polyps caused by voice overuse or other factors – it‘s not simply a matter of whether or not there are any lesions. It is extremely important to precisely discern at what depth the lesion is located within the vocal cord in three-dimensional terms.”
An extra dimension of detail
Sony’s 4K medical monitors have helped Dr Komazawa view high-quality images of patients’ vocal chords with greater accuracy and confidence:
“I felt that there was a limit to what can be done when examining minute lesions with traditional equipment. I thought it would be necessary to have equipment that allows the vocal cords to be viewed realistically but while the high pixel count of a 4K camera would be best in detailed observations, the strobe filming that slows the vibrations of the vocal cords does not synchronise with the CMOS sensor installed in 4K cameras. This leaves lines in the images, which is why I use an HD camera with a CCD sensor. For that reason, one issue was the selection of the monitor that best displays the original HD camera images. The upconverted images displayed on the Sony 4K medical monitor had a realistic three-dimensional quality I had not seen on HD monitors up to that time, and I made my decision immediately.”
A finer view of fine structures
“With Sony 4K monitors I can examine in detail the fine blood vessels of the vocal cord mucous membranes which I was not able to see accurately before” says Dr Komazawa. “I have long believed that new blood vessels occurring as a result of chronic inflammation have an impact on voice endurance, and I hope that this monitor will be able to help me verify that hypothesis.”
Helping patients see themselves
“When patients view images on the Sony monitor for the first time, they are shocked by the level of clarity and realism” confirms Dr Komazawa. “Being able to definitively understand the condition of one’s own vocal cords leads patients to an awareness of self-maintenance. This gives them a better feeling of the value of the examination.”