Effect of rapid maxillary expansion on the apnoea-hypopnoea index during sleep in children. Systematic review

Rapid maxillary expansion (RME) treatment is prescribed in patients with maxillary compression, achieving increases in transverse palate and nasal cavity dimensions together with an increase in the distance between the pterygoid processes. Sleep apnoea-h

Efficacy of mandibular advancement device in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome: a randomized controlled crossover clinical trial

Background: Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of a mandibular advancement device (MAD) (KlearwayTM) in the treatment of mild-to-moderate obstructive sleep apnea and chronic roncopathy. Material and Methods: A randomized, placebo-controlled, double blinded, and crossover clinical trial was conducted. Placebo device (PD) defined as a splint in the centric occlusion that did not induce a mandibular advancement served as a control. The mandible was advanced to the maximum tolerable distance or to a minimum of 65% of the maximum protrusion. After each sequence of treatment, patients were assessed by questionnaires, conventional polysomnography, and objective measurement of snoring at the patient’s own home. Results: Forty two patients participated in the study and 38 completed the study. Patients mean age was 46 ±9 years and the 79% were males. The mean mandibular advancement was 8.6 ±2.8 mm. Patients used the MAD and the PD for 6.4 +2.4 hours and 6.2 +2.0 hours, respectively. Secondary effects (mostly mild) occurred in the 85.7% and the 86.8% of the users of MAD and PD, respectively. The MAD induced a decrease in the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) from 15.3 +10.2 to 11.9 +15.5. The 50% reduction in the AHI was achieved in the 46.2% and the 18.4% of the patients treated with MAD and PD, respectively. The use of the MAD induced a reduction in the AHI by 3.4 +15.9 while the PD induced an increase by 10.6 +26.1. The subjective evaluation of the roncopathy indicated an improvement by the MAD and an increase in the perceptive quality of sleep. However, the objective evaluation of the roncopathy did not show significant improvements. Conclusions: The use of MAD is efficient to reduce the AHI and improve subjectively the roncopathy. MAD could be considered in the treatment of mild-to-moderate OSA and chronic roncopath

Effect of Patient Sex on the Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients with Newly Diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Admitted by an Acute Coronary Syndrome

Background: The cardiovascular consequences of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) differ by sex. We hypothesized that sex influences the severity of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in patients with OSA. OSA was defined as an apnoea–hypopnoea index (AHI)>15 events·h-1. We evaluated the severity of ACS according to the ejection fraction, Killip class, number of diseased vessels, number of stents implanted and plasma peak troponin level. Methods: We included 663 men (mean±SD, AHI 37±18 events·h-1) and 133 women (AHI 35±18 events·h-1) with OSA. Results: The men were younger than the women (59±11 versus 66±11 years, p<0.0001), exhibited a higher neck circumference (p<0.0001), and were more likely to be smokers and alcohol users than women (p<0.0001, p = 0.0005, respectively). Body mass index and percentage of hypertensive patients or diabetics were similar between sexes. We observed a slight tendency for a higher Killip classification in women, although it was not statistically significant (p = 0.055). For men, we observed that the number of diseased vessels and the number of stents implanted were higher (p = 0.02, p = 0.001, respectively), and a decrease in the ejection fraction (p = 0.002). Conclusions: This study shows that sex in OSA influences the severity of ACS. Men show a lower ejection fraction and an increased number of diseased vessels and number of stents implanted

Detection of severe obstructive sleep apnea through voice analysis

tThis paper deals with the potential and limitations of using voice and speech processing to detect Obstruc-tive Sleep Apnea (OSA). An extensive body of voice features has been extracted from patients whopresent various degrees of OSA as well as healthy controls. We analyse the utility of a reduced set offeatures for detecting OSA. We apply various feature selection and reduction schemes (statistical rank-ing, Genetic Algorithms, PCA, LDA) and compare various classifiers (Bayesian Classifiers, kNN, SupportVector Machines, neural networks, Adaboost). S-fold crossvalidation performed on 248 subjects showsthat in the extreme cases (that is, 127 controls and 121 patients with severe OSA) voice alone is able todiscriminate quite well between the presence and absence of OSA. However, this is not the case withmild OSA and healthy snoring patients where voice seems to play a secondary role. We found that thebest classification schemes are achieved using a Genetic Algorithm for feature selection/reduction