Prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue following ablation surgery

Abstract

Background/purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SSC) of the tongue after primary surgical resection and to correlate the presence of OSA with the occurrence of obstructive apnea in this patient population. Materials and methods: This was a retrospective study of 26 Taiwanese patients, 24 males and two females, aged 37e71 years, after surgical resection of SSC of the tongue. Patients who had a follow-up after treatment of 6 months to 11 years were eligible for inclusion. During the posttreatment period, the occurrence of OSA was determined in these patients. Overnight polysomnography (PSG) was used to determine the apneaehypopnea index (AHI). Patients were considered to have OSA if the AHI value was >5. Results: Patients with an AHI value of <5 showed a mean body mass index (BMI) of 22.8 kg/m 2 , while those with an AHI value of >5 showed a mean BMI of 28.3 kg/m 2 . The BMI distribution between patients with AHI value of <5 and those with AHI values of >5 was statistically significant (P Z 0.018). Using the definition of clinically significant sleep apnea as AHI > 5, 14 of 26 patients (53.85%) had clinical OSA. The OSA and non-OSA groups showed no statistical significance in terms of age, tumor size, tongue ablation, neck dissection [method?], or wound reconstruction methods. Conclusion: Incidence of OSA in the patient population with SSC of the tongue was found to be significantly higher than that in the general population. The limitations of this study were the Journal of Dental Sciences (2012) 7, 245e249 relatively small patient sample size and no presurgical PSG record being obtained from the patients to compare the sleep quality before and after cancer therapy.

Prevalence of sleep disturbances among head and neck cancer patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Most studies (59%) were conducted in the USA, Canada, or European countries [34,35,37,39e41,43,45e48,50,52,54,57,59,60]. Twenty-one studies focused specifically on HNC patients [32,34e36, [32,40], larynx [42,51], nasopharynx [53,55,56], and oropharynx [45]. About 33% [36] up to 93% [51] of the study population consists of male HNC patients, while the gender proportion was unknown among eight studies [33,37,38,43,47,49,52,57].…”

Prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea after treatment for advanced T-stage head and neck cancer

“…In contrast however, Huppertz et al found that patients with small cancers had a higher risk for OSA [ 23 ]. Other studies found no association [ 16 , 20 , 22 , 32 ]. Also, type of tumor treatment, especially the involvement of radiotherapy might be associated with OSA after treatment.…”

“…Several research groups have investigated OSA prevalence in HNC populations [ 12 , 13 , 15 – 17 , 19 – 23 , 32 – 34 ]. The estimated prevalence in these studies, however, varied greatly, from 12 to 96% [ 15 , 19 ].…”

Photodynamic therapy in the treatment of early squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity

“…1 In India, oral cancer is the commonest cancer in males. 2 Although there have been great advances in the diagnosis and treatment of OSCC in recent years, the 5-year survival rate for advanced oral cancer patients has remained approximately 20.0%. 3 Oral lesions like leukoplakia, erythroplakia and submucosal fibrosis are common precursors of malignancy.…”