OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP-APNEA TREATMENT OUTCOMES PILOT-STUDY

Approximately 40 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders, the m ost serious of which is obstructive sleep apnea, The goals of this res earch were to serve as a demonstration project for a multicenter treat ment outcomes research project for patients with obstructive sleep apn ea, A clinical-severity staging system was created to control for impo rtant differences in the severity of sleep apnea among the enrolled pa tients. A disease-specific quality-of-life measure was used in this pr oject to measure, from the patient's perspective, important pretreatme nt and posttreatment physical, functional, and emotional aspects of ob structive sleep apnea, Adults with apnea indexes greater than 5 who ha d not previously undergone uvulopalatoplasty were eligible. In total 1 42 patients were enrolled from eight otolaryngology practices, The mea n age was 48 years, 112 were men, and 114 were white, The mean pretrea tment apnea index was 40.0, and the mean respiratory distress index wa s 60.5. Seventy-one patients received continuous positive airway press ure, and 48 patients received surgery, Outcomes were assessed from sco res on patient-based general and disease-specific health status measur es 4 months after enrollment. The short duration of follow-up and limi ted number of patients undergoing posttreatment polysomnograms prohibi t any analysis of treatment effectiveness. Nevertheless, this research represents a step forward for the support of future outcomes research projects by organized otolaryngology.