Effect of bariatric surgery in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea in obese patients.

Purpose: To analyze the success rate of bariatric surgery in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in obese patients and its related factors.

Methods: Longitudinal, prospective, single cohort study, with consecutive sampling including OSA patients aged 18-65 years intervened of bariatric surgery. An anamnesis regarding OSA, a complete upper airway (UA) exploration and a cardiorespiratory polygraphy (CRP) pre- and post-surgery were performed.

Results: Fifty-seven patients were included in this study. The overall surgical success and cure rates for bariatric surgery as a treatment for OSA were 61.4% and 52.6%, respectively. Factors predicting success were female sex (OR = 12.54; CI95% = 1.75-89.88, p = 0.012), age below 53 years old (OR = 7.24; CI95% = 1.48-35.51, p = 0.015) and pre-surgical weight below 105 kg (OR = 8.1; CI95% = 1.44-45.62, p = 0.018). Surgical success cases had lower weight and body mass index, greater weight loss, smaller postsurgical neck circumference and less palatal webbing, however these were not independent factors in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: Our results show that bariatric surgery is a feasible option for OSA treatment in obese patients, with a higher success rate in female, younger and thinner patients. Moreover, adipose tissue on the UA has been proven to decrease as a result of weight loss, although not correlated with surgery success in the treatment of OSA.