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OSA is neuroprotective!

This interesting study supports the hypothesis of the protective effects of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) against ischemic events like stroke. The authors evaluated the impact of OSA with the presentation, hospital course and outcomes of patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH)....

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...

Postoperative complications in OSA patients

This well researched meta-analysis describes the various complications obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) patients may acquire after surgery. These American reviewers found that OSA patients after non-upper airway operations, were more like to suffer (compared to non-OSA patients), from the following...

Clinical assessment in OSA

This paper divides the assessment up into anatomical (nasal and oropharyngeal), endoscopic and imaging. It points out the salient features to look out for in OSA patients with regards the nasal valve and also oropharyngeal anatomy, with tonsil hypertrophy grading...

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...

Hypoglossal stimulation for OSA

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is a highly effective treatment for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), but suffers significantly from poor patient adherence. This paper reports the three-year outcomes of a prospective multicentre cohort study examining the effect of hypoglossal...

Advancing the tongue in OSA surgery

This article further delineates the options for hypopharyngeal OSA and describes the technique of genioglossus advancement to improve the tension in the tongue base. The authors take the reader through the relevant anatomy appropriate to the procedure and describe the...

Hypoglossal nerve stimulation for OSA

Hypoglossal nerve stimulation has been lauded as the great new surgical treatment panacea for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). This meta-analysis includes 12 studies with a total of 350 patients, including the five-year follow-up data from the STAR trial which was...

Describing the most useful OSA assessment?

This article sets out to comprehensibly describe drug induced sleep endoscopy and its role in determining the level of obstruction in patients with OSA. The advantages described include the fact that other techniques, including Muller’s manoeuvre, have significant variation in...

Surgery for hypopharyngeal obstruction causing OSA

Surgical treatments for OSA are evolving with improved diagnostic accuracy of the level(s) involved. Where the collapsing segment lies below the soft palate, a variety of surgical techniques to correct the affected segment(s) are emerging. This article concentrates on one...

OSA – do the parents know best?

The difficulty in using the history and examination to determine the severity of sleep disordered breathing in children is well established. The relative prevalence of sleep disordered breathing symptoms in children, and the relative paucity of capacity and restrictive cost...

Dizziness in OSA patients– is there a link and can CPAP treat it?

This is a small study which proposes an interesting hypothesis - that in patients with both dizziness and OSA, treatment of their sleep disorder can provide resolution of their dizziness symptoms, which were otherwise refractory to standard treatment, particularly in...