Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Sleep related breathing disorders are a spectrum ranging from mild to severe. Management of OSAS can be divided into surgical and non-surgical. Different surgeries are offered (alone) or as a part of multi-tiered surgery. The UPPP technique was introduced in the 1980s by Fujita and colleagues to treat OSA, however it had a high failure rate. Since then there have been many modifications to the original technique and the emergence of different ‘flavors’ of palatal surgery. This paper aims to examine the existing literature to determine the effectiveness of palatal surgery in treating OSA. As mentioned previously, patients presenting with sleep related breathing disorders cannot be neatly divided into categories but rather symptoms are ranging. “The population of individuals seeking treatment for OSA is heterogeneous. At one end of the spectrum are patients with morbid obesity, carbon dioxide retention, hypertension, and right-sided heart failure with an AI of more than 100. At the other end of the spectrum are those individuals with minimal sleep-disordered breathing whose chief complaint is snoring.” (Johnson & Braun, 2008).