Identification of Phenotypic Patterns of Dysphagia: A Proof of Concept Study

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of the current project was to explore the feasibility for subtyping dysphagia traits or patterns of scores in a subset of data from the Modified Barium Swallow Impairment Profile global registry in patients referred to videofluoroscopic swallowing studies across 5 common medical categories: (a) cardiothoracic, (b) gastroenterology, (c) head and neck cancer, (d) neurology, and (e) pulmonary. Method Videofluoroscopic swallowing study imaging and Modified Barium Swallow Impairment Profile metrics were used to evaluate 235 patients with dysphagia grouped into 1 of the 5 categories. Two summative domain scores (oral total [OT] and pharyngeal total [PT]) and 17 component scores were tested for differences among the categories. Results When compared with the gastroenterology category, significantly higher OT/PT scores were observed in neurology and pulmonary categories (all p values < .05). Four oral and 6 pharyngeal domain components significantly differed across medical categories: tongue control during bolus hold (all p values < .04). Conclusions The results of this feasibility study demonstrate that summative scores of swallowing physiology alone are not sufficiently robust to distinguish subtypes of dysphagia in broad, heterogeneous medical categories. Using OT/PT as subtypes only separated gastroenterology from the other categories, suggesting overlap in OT/PT scores between the latter categories.