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Importance: The efficacy of surgical treatments for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is variable when considering only the Apnea Hypopnea Index as the treatment end point. However, only a few studies have shown an association between these procedures and improved clinically relevant outcomes, such as cardiovascular, endocrine, and neurological sequelae of OSA. Objective: To evaluate the association of surgery for OSA with clinically relevant outcomes. Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective cohort study used the Truven MarketScan Database from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2015, to identify all patients diagnosed with OSA who received a prescription of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), were 40 to 89 years of age, and had at least 3 years of data on file. Data were analyzed September 19, 2019. Interventions: Soft tissue and skeletal surgical procedures for the treatment of OSA. Main Outcomes and Measures: The occurrence of cardiovascular, neurological, and endocrine complications was compared in patients who received CPAP alone and those who received surgery. High-dimensionality propensity score matching was used to adjust the models for confounders. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis with a log-rank test was used to compare differences in survival curves. Findings: A total of 54 224 patients were identified (33 405 men 61.6%; mean SD age, 55.1 9.2 years), including a cohort of 49 823 patients who received CPAP prescription alone (mean SD age, 55.5 9.4 years) and 4269 patients who underwent soft tissue surgery (mean SD age, 50.3 7.0 years). The median follow-up time was 4.47 (interquartile range, 3-8) years after the index CPAP prescription. In the unadjusted model, soft tissue surgery was associated with decreased cardiovascular (hazard ratio HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.86-0.98), neurological (HR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.39-0.61), and endocrine (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.74-0.86) events. This finding was maintained in the adjusted model (HR for cardiovascular events, 0.91 95% CI, 0.83-1.00; HR for neurological events, 0.67 95% CI, 0.51-0.89; HR for endocrine events, 0.82 95% CI, 0.74-0.91). Skeletal surgery (n = 114) and concomitant skeletal and soft tissue surgery (n = 18) did not demonstrate significant differences in rates of development of systemic complications. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, soft tissue surgery for OSA was associated with lower rates of development of cardiovascular, neurological, and endocrine systemic complications compared with CPAP prescription in a large convenience sample of the working insured US adult population. These findings suggest that surgery should be part of the early treatment algorithm in patients at high risk of CPAP failure or nonadherence.
Ibrahim et al. (Thu,) studied this question.