Feb. 10, 2012 -- The Grammy Awards are the first live performance for Adele, the bluesy 23- year-old British singer and 2011 Billboard artist of the year, since having throat surgery last November to remove a benign polyp on her vocal cord. To better understand the procedure she underwent and the reasons for it, WebMD spoke with Gerald Berke, MD, director of the UCLA Voice Center for Medicine and the Arts. Berke, a head and neck surgeon, did not treat Adele. What causes such polyps? Are they rare? "First, people do not get polyps, they get one polyp,” Berke says. “We are not 100% sure of what causes them, but the main risk factor is voice abuse. Adele’s quality of vocal production likely contributed to them. That edge in her voice, that particular type of singing, stresses the vocal cords. People who gain prominence as singers often have an edge to their voice, and they often abuse their voice to get that edge. The type of hemorrhagic, or bleeding, polyp she had is a classic type that you see in singers. And when you develop a big polyp, that makes it difficult to sing properly."
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 11:57:55 +0000
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