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Abstract Introduction Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects approximately 15-30% of males and 10-15% of females in North America. While positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy remains the standard in the treatment of OSA, oral appliance therapy (OAT) has emerged as a viable non-invasive alternative. However, there are limited data on OAT efficacy published, and therefore many sleep clinicians question its efficacy. As an update to last year’s presentation, we extended our single-center consecutive chart review to 26 months to evaluate OAT efficacy. Methods A manual chart review was performed for records from 11/1/2020 to 12/20/2023. Potential charts were identified in the electronic health record by searching for prescriptions for OAT and orders for home sleep apnea tests (HSAT). If there was a test performed after the prescription was written, the chart was reviewed manually for previous test results and verified that post-OAT testing was conducted. Extracted information included age, BMI, gender, pre-OAT HSAT apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), and post-OAT HSAT AHI. The 4% desaturation criteria for AHI was used in accordance with current Medicare guidelines. A paired t-test was performed after ensuring there were no outliers and a normal distribution. Results There were 34 patients included in the analysis: 17 women, 17 men. The average age was 60.2 years (95% CI XXX), and average BMI was 29.5 (95% CI XXX). Prior to intervention, 12 patients had moderate OSA with the rest mild (average pre-OAT AHI 10). After OAT device, 2 patients had more than mild obstructive sleep apnea,18 patients had mild OSA, and the rest (14) did not have residual OSA (average post-OAT AHI 6). The results of the paired t-test showed that the mean AHI was statistically significantly different between the two groups. Conclusion The results demonstrate efficacy of OAT in treating OSA. Clinicians should consider OAT as both primary and secondary therapy for mild-to-moderate OSA. Support (if any)
Meskill et al. (Sat,) studied this question.