A multi-centre study on 735 patients was published in Laryngoscope Journal 08 Oct 2020.
This was an eight country collaborative study of 735 obstructive sleep apnea who had multilevel palate and/or tongue surgery. They were divided into two groups. One with other without nose surgery.There were 575 patients in nose group, 160 patients in no nose group. In this study it was shown that nose group had improved outcomes of Apnoea-Hypopnea index by 20% compared to the no nose group.
The reason for this noted difference is because, with any nasal blockage the lungs would need to create a “more negative pressure” to breath at night. During relaxed states of breathing, this would invariably lead to more suction and collapse of the airway. Given this we might need to consider including nasal surgery as part of the multilevel OSA surgery for patients with sleep apnoea.
At CSSC we have had 75% surgical success rate for most difficult anatomy groups even without nasal surgery.. We would offer nasal surgery to further improve outcomes, for those with any residual nasal symptoms. We would do nasal surgery after they fully recover from their airway surgery.
