Is epiglottis surgery necessary for obstructive sleep apnea patients with epiglottis obstruction?

Objectives/Hypothesis

To examine the effect of epiglottis obstruction during drug‐induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) on the surgical results of multilevel sleep surgery without epiglottic intervention.

Study Design

Cross‐sectional study.

Methods

This investigation involved patients diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) based on preoperative polysomnography (PSG), who underwent DISE followed by multilevel OSA surgery without epiglottic intervention at Kyung Hee Medical Center (Seoul, South Korea) between March 2013 and July 2016. During DISE, obstruction patterns of the upper airway were evaluated using the velum, oropharynx, tongue base, epiglottis classification method. Follow‐up PSG was performed 3 months after surgery to determine the success rate of multilevel surgery without epiglottic intervention. A comparison was done between the group with epiglottis obstruction and the group without epiglottis obstruction.

Results

Epiglottis obstruction was observed during DISE in 43.7% of patients. After application of exclusion criteria, 54 subjects were included (27 with and 27 without epiglottis obstruction). DISE revealed an association between epiglottis obstruction and tongue base collapse (P = .02). Comparing pre‐ and postoperative PSG findings, both groups exhibited improvement postoperatively. The success rate was 44.4% in the epiglottis obstruction group and 40.7% in the non–epiglottis obstruction group (P = .80). There was no difference in surgical success rates between the two groups.

Conclusions

The prevalence of epiglottis obstruction requiring epiglottic surgery was lower than what was found during DISE. Sleep surgeons may consider staged epiglottic surgery in patients with epiglottis obstruction.

Level of Evidence

3b Laryngoscope, 2019

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