Dr. Albert Jacobs

Dr. Albert Jacobs is an honorary member of CALYP — Centre d'Art Lyrique de Paris. At the request of its president Adeline Toniutti, he joined the association's team of specialist practitioners. At CALYP, we consider the presence and dialogue with specialists — particularly ENT surgeons — to be fundamental, as they bring the necessary clarity to vocal professionals about their instrument. Indeed, vocal teacher Adeline Toniutti maintains regular exchanges with medical specialists in order to ground her vocal technique on solid physiological foundations. The functioning of the larynx is sufficiently complex to require the collaboration of multiple practitioners at different levels, and its health is non-negotiable.

Albert Jacobs — biographical elements

Surgeon Albert Jacobs was born in Kolea, Algeria, to French parents. At age 9, his family moved to France, settling in the Alsace region. He completed all his secondary studies in Epinal, Lorraine.

At the age of 11, when the general practitioner asked him: "What do you want to do when you grow up?", Albert Jacobs replied: "Like you."

A vocation for surgery

And so Albert Jacobs began a course in general medicine at the Faculty of Medicine in Nancy. After completing his course, driven by a "desire to get to the bottom of things," Albert Jacobs chose to become a specialist and obtained a CES (Certificate of Specialized Studies) in ENT.

Unable to register for the internship, the choice of this specialty allowed him to access this medico-surgical discipline.

During the CES, Albert tells us that he was fortunate to benefit from 7 semesters of internship, which gave him training in oncology in addition to learning the rudiments of surgery.

At the end of this course, after obtaining his diploma, the surgeon took a sabbatical year to further his training in oncology.

Why oncology?

For Albert Jacobs, oncology means: "Getting to the bottom of things and… curing people." He thus obtained a DU (University Diploma) in ENT Oncology at Villejuif under Dr. Yves Cachin.

To be closer to his family, Dr. Albert Jacobs settled in Belfort in 1981, where he has been an ENT specialist and cervicofacial surgeon at the Clinique de la Miotte.

From there, he has performed:

• standard ENT surgery (nose, throat, ears)
• cervicofacial surgery (thyroid, salivary glands, oncology)
• stomatology

During these years, the surgeon developed a keen interest in reconstructive surgery and obtained a DU (University Diploma) in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Lyon under Professor Disant. This training enabled him to improve his techniques for reconstructing excisions of cancerous facial tumours.

Laryngeal and vocal cord surgery

Albert Jacobs identifies two main areas of laryngeal surgery:

• functional laryngeal surgery: vocal cord stripping (polyps, cysts, pseudomyxomas)
• laryngeal oncology

In cases of laryngeal cancer, the surgeon endeavours as far as possible to preserve function — that is, the voice.

The surgeon's fundamental priority in laryngeal oncology is to save the patient. When the tumour is too extensive, laryngectomy (removal of the larynx) is unavoidable. Fortunately, numerous techniques have been developed to remain conservative, up to and including reconstructive total laryngectomies.

The surgeon lists the different types of laryngectomy:

• Partial laryngectomies:
• Cordectomy (complete removal of the vocal cord on one side)
• Frontolateral (removal of the cord and the anterior third of the second cord) — paradoxically, the frontolateral procedure yields better vocal results than the first.
• Reconstructive total laryngectomies with epiglottopexy:
• Tucker intervention
• Leroux Robert total reconstruction (crico-hyoido-pexy)
• Labayle total reconstructive laryngectomy (glosso-cricoido-pexy)

Team-based follow-up

In the context of surgical interventions, Dr. Albert Jacobs works in permanent collaboration with speech therapists and/or oncologists. He advocates for pre-operative rehabilitation work with a speech therapist so that the patient develops proper phonatory habits before the surgical intervention, thereby enhancing the post-operative period and optimising vocal recovery.