Egophony

Introduction

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.

Our lesson can be found in this course. Secondly, our reference index is designed to provide quick access to stridor sounds, with audio tracks, listening guides and waveforms. Use this link for quick reference to heart and lung sounds.

Definition

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 hear 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.

Egophony: Healthy vs Abnormal

Listening Tips

Having asked the patient to say 'e' as you auscultate the lungs, you may hear two different sounds as presented below.

Egophony - Healthy

The sound is an 'e'.

The patient's position should be sitting.

Egophony - Consolidated Lungs

Listen for 'a' (aaaay).

The patient's position should be sitting.

Quick Links to Other Breath Sounds

While we have many breath sound lessons and quick references on this website. Please use the links below.

Related Lessons

Two lessons on egophony sounds are part of our Intermediate Lung Sounds course. There are also lessons on bronchophony and whispered pectoriloquy, which are other types of voiced sounds. We suggest taking the full course (about 20 minutes), but the egophony lesson can be used without the full course.