Egophony
Welcome to our website's egophony page. Here we provide a description of egophony and related voiced breath sounds along with clinical significance. We then compare healthy vs abnormal voiced sounds using audio recordings and text. Finally, we provide links to the lung sound training lessons available on this web site.
Definition of Egophony
Voiced sounds, such as egophony, can provide important information about the presence of a lung abnormality and its location. The basic idea is that normal lungs (filled with air), do not readily transmit sounds, while consolidated lung tissue more readily transmits sounds. To use egophony during an exam, ask the patient to say 'e' as you auscultate over the chest wall. Over normal lung areas, you will here the same 'e' tones. Over consolidated tissue, the 'e' sound changes to a nasal quality 'a' (aaaaay), like a goat's bleating. The sound will often become louder over consolidated tissue. The next paragraph and recordings will make this clearer.