Journal Reviews
Can obstructive snoring affect the snorer’s ears as well?
Patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) often show severe nasal obstruction, chronic sinusitis and/or a deficit of nasal mucociliary clearance with nasopharyngeal stagnation of secretions possibly predisposing to eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD). This clinical prospective study investigates ETD, nasal resistance...
Modern surgical treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea indicate suppression of inflammatory cytokines
This study comprises 57 patients, 29 of which were treated by anterior palatoplasty procedure, expansion sphincter pharyngoplasty and submucosal minimal invasive lingual excision techniques and 27 by CPAP therapy. Parameters to determine success were AHI, VAS score, ESS score, mean...
Can telemetry predict sleep apnoea in Pierre Robin sequence?
The aim of this study was to see if telemetry data gathered on patients with Pierre Robin sequence (PRS) correlated with sleep study data. A retrospective review of 46 patients from a tertiary referral centre were included in the study....
Diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnoea hypopneoa syndrome (OSAHS) without sleep studies
Polysomnography is considered the ‘gold standard’ in the diagnosis of sleep apnoea but it is expensive and difficult to perform in children. Diagnosis based on subjective judgement is often inaccurate. An accurate diagnostic scale based on clinical parameters could obviate...
How useful is AHI?
There is a growing unease in the sleep medicine world about the usefulness of the apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI). Most of our objective evidence about obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is in some way related to the AHI, and the respiratory physicians...
Polysolmnography and laryngomalacia severity
Laryngomalacia represents the single most common cause of stridor in infants. Most cases are self-resolving, but a proportion of children will require surgical intervention. This group aimed to analyse the efficacy of polysomnography in determining the severity of laryngomalacia in...
The sleep nasendoscopy learning curve
There seems to be no accepted way of surgically assessing patients with sleep disordered breathing (SDB). Because of this, clinicians fall roughly into three camps: those who just use one operation for all patients, those who have given up surgery...
Comparison of outcomes after septoplasty
For this prospective study, the authors assessed the quality of life (QoL) with the rhinosinusitis SNOT-20 (Sino-Nasal Outcome Test-20) questionnaire and the symptoms on a visual analogue scale (VAS) in all patients undergoing nasal septal surgery. The patients reported the...
Surgical options for children with OSA
This paper looks at the surgical management of OSA in children and approaches the method of patient selection initially. They discuss the role of polysomnography in that it is part of the AAOHNS criteria in those patients with OSA symptoms...
Investigations in the management of OSA in children
The purpose of this study was to pick up variation of practice across the UK in the assessment and management of children with suspected OSA, particularly with reference to pulse oximetry and polysomnography. A questionnaire-based survey revealed that preoperative pulse...
Outcome of TORS to tongue base and epiglottis in patients with OSA intolerant of conventional treatment
The use of transoral robotic surgery (TORS) in ENT is rather controversial, but the use of robotic surgery for obstructive sleep apneoa (OSA), makes it doubly so. Previous studies on TORS in OSA have been performed with other types of...
Effectiveness of oral pressure therapy in obstructive sleep apnoea: a systematic analysis
Oral pressure therapy (OPT) is a relatively new form of therapy for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Paradoxically it seems to work even though it creates a vacuum in the oral cavity as opposed to the gold standard of continuous positive...
