Sleep disorder cured by simple throat surgery

Main Category: Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia
Article Date: 22 Feb 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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A common sleep disorder can be corrected with a simple form of throat surgery. This is easier and just as effective as more invasive procedures, say researchers in Taiwan.

At Taipei's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, 82% of patients with apnoea were cured, researchers said.

You can read about their research in the journal Archives of Otolaryngology. It was carried out on 55 patients.

People with apnoea experience snoring and interruptions in their breathing while they are asleep.

In order to start breathing correctly again the person wakes up. This can seriously disturb their sleep. In extreme cases patients have been known to wake up one hundred times in a single night.

Current surgical treatment for this is to remove some of the tissue in the throat, this widens the airway. Unfortunately, it only helps about 50% of people with apnoea.

In this new procedure, muscle tissue is left alone. The surgeon removes fatty tissue, soft glands and the tonsils. The procedure is called uvulopalatal flap surgery.

Researchers found that after this treatment patients were snoring less, they were more alert during the day and levels of oxygen in their blood was higher than before.

Researchers were unsure why this technique is better, but they say it is.

Some experts in the UK have their doubts about the validity of the study.

Other experts say that a technique called 'Continuous Positive Airway Pressure' is more effective than any surgery.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure involves wearing a mask. This blows air under pressure up the nose, down the airways and out of the mouth. The airways are kept open with this technique.

Registering an improvement in your symptoms does not necessarily mean that this simple surgical treatment is a cure, commented another expert.

One should wait a couple of years to see whether the patients' symptoms have come back.