[One night treatment of obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome with nasopharyngeal airway].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the therapeutical effect and feasibility of treating obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) with nasopharyngeal airway.


METHODS
Thirty-two OSAHS patients were treated with silicone nasopharyngeal airway for one night. Each patient had Somite polysomnography (PSG) for the first night and repeated PSG with the nasopharyngeal airway treatment for the second night. PSG parameters were compared between the two nights. With normal distribution data in (x(-) +/- s), Paired-Samples t test was used.


RESULTS
Overall patient tolerance of the nasopharyngeal airway for one night was 90.6% (29/32). With the nasopharyngeal airway treatment, the AHI of the 29 patients decreased from (44.7 +/- 16.0)/h to (14.6 +/- 10.0)/h, the longest time of apnea shortened from (44.3 +/- 11.5) s to (30.1 +/- 13.2) s, the lowest arterial oxygen saturation increased from (0.722 +/- 0.080) to (0.861 +/- 0.070) and the percentage of sleep time with arterial oxygen saturation < 0.90 decreased from (19.2 +/- 18.0)% to (1.5 +/- 4.0)%. Data showed obvious therapeutical effect (Paired-Samples t test, P < 0.001). The subject symptoms of the 29 patients improved obviously that night with treatment and the following day after treatment. The therapeutical successful rate for one night was 65.5% (19/29, a reduction of AHI by 50% and AHI < 20/h). The noneffective reason of the six patients was probably that they had higher proportion of tongue base obstruction.


CONCLUSIONS
The single-night preliminary experiment shows that the treatment using nasopharyngeal airway has obvious therapeutical effect for OSAHS patients with retropalatal obstruction and provides clinical evidence for developing a new treatment approach in the future. In addition, based on the result of nasopharyngeal airway treatment, the obstruction level may be evaluated.
Huo
Hong
H
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
Li
Wu-yi
WY
Shen
Ping
P
Liu
Jian-han
JH
D000328:Adult; D045422:Continuous Positive Airway Pressure; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008876:Middle Ear Ventilation; D009305:Nasopharynx; D017286:Polysomnography; D020181:Sleep Apnea, Obstructive / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D015607:Stents; D016896:Treatment Outcome