News & Events

Singing the praises of NU professor

http://www.suntimes.com/output/rock/cst-nws-voice21.html

August 21, 2006

BY ZACHARY M. SEWARD

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler is once again hitting the high notes of "Dream On," thanks in part to a Northwestern University business professor.

"We're equal opportunity,'' says Northwestern's John Ward with a laugh. He allows he is "more of a classical and jazz guy'' than an aficionado of Tyler & Co.

Earlier this year, Tyler had a unique form of experimental surgery to repair a popped blood vessel in his throat. The procedure at Massachusetts General Hospital featured a thin laser snaking through his iconic mouth and down into his legendary pipes.

Today, says Tyler, "I'm back in action. ... I can do the whole Janis Joplin thing.''

The singer was treated with a pulsed potassium-titanyl-phosphate (KTP) laser, the latest and most promising procedure to come out of Massachusetts General's voice center. Quick bursts of green laser light, lasting just 15 milliseconds, zapped Tyler's broken blood vessel, sealing it without touching it.

Even the slightest tweak in Tyler's throat could have altered the sound of ''Walk This Way,'' his signature tune.

A paper just published by Steven Zeitels in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology reports effective and ''relatively safe'' treatments in 39 singers, using the pulsed-KTP laser in some cases and an earlier incarnation, a yellow-light laser, in others.

''This is profoundly affecting the way we treat vocal disorders,'' says Zeitels, who performed the surgery on Tyler.

Zeitels' research is partially funded by the Institute of Laryngology and Voice Restoration, which was started by a handful of grateful patients, including Ward.

Four years ago, Ward had developed two cancers on his vocal cords. In three surgeries over several months, Zeitels was able to remove the larger tumor and eliminate the other by cutting off its blood supply with the yellow-light laser. That saved Ward's voice, and he continues to give lectures.

''Dr. Zeitels not only saved my life but my career as well,'' said Ward, 60. In appreciation, Ward, co-director of the Center for Family Enterprises at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, helped launch the institute.

Wall Street Journal

Contributing: Andrew Herrmann

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