Professor and Chair Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Republic of China)
Disclosure(s):
Hsin-Ching Lin, MD, FACS: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Introduction: To investigate the effects of multilevel airway surgery for obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome (OSA) on polysomnographic (PSG) parameters and 6-minute walk test (6MWT), as well as the relationships among the parameters’ changes.
Methods: A prospective cohort study enrolling 48 consecutive OSA patients undergoing multilevel OSA surgery to discover the alterations of sleep parameters and 6MWT post-operatively. The pre- and post-operative values of polysomnographic data and 6MWT profiles were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with subgroups based on the pre-operative 6MWT distance values. The relationships among changes of the indices of PSG and 6MWT were further investigated with the Spearman’s correlations.
Results: After multilevel OSA surgery, the sleep parameters and 6MWT profiles improved generally. When analyzing the correlations among changes of the indices of PSG and 6MWT in those with abnormal pre-operative 6MWT performance, the improvement of daytime sleepiness (with ESS) was found related to farther walking distance (ρ=-0.414, p=0.032) and higher percentage of “distance/target distance” (ρ=-0.435, p=0.023). Moreover, the change of maximal expiratory pressure was the only index associated with the changes of AHI (apnea/hypopnea index, /hr.; ρ=-0.407, p=0.035) and AHI in REM (ρ=-0.502, p=0.009) among the cardiopulmonary performance parameters.
Conclusions: OSA patients undergoing multilevel sleep surgery could have benefits in both the sleep study and 6MWT profiles post-operatively. The better performance in 6MWT after the operation might be resulted from the improvement of daytime sleepiness, which might potentially be associated with better respiration along with sleep parameters alterations.
