Study objectives

Controversy exists as to whether elevated loop gain is a cause or consequence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Upper airway surgery is commonly performed in Asian patients with OSA who have failed positive airway pressure therapy and who are thought to have anatomical predisposition to OSA. We hypothesized that high loop gain would decrease following surgical treatment of OSA due to reduced sleep apnea severity.

Methods

Polysomnography was performed preoperatively and postoperatively to assess OSA severity in 30 Chinese participants who underwent upper airway surgery. Loop gain was calculated using a validated clinically-applicable method by fitting a feedback control model to airflow.

Results

Patients were followed up for a median (interquartile range) of 130 (62, 224) days after surgery. Apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) changed from 60.8 (33.7, 71.7) to 18.4 (9.9, 42.5) events/h (P < .001). Preoperative and postoperative loop gain was 0.70 (0.58, 0.80) and 0.53 (0.46, 0.63) respectively (P < .001). There was a positive association between the decrease in loop gain and the improvement of AHI (P = .025).

Conclusions

High loop gain was reduced by surgical treatment of OSA in our cohort. These data suggest that elevated loop gain may be acquired in OSA and may provide mechanistic insight into improvement in OSA with upper airway surgery.

Clinical trial registration

Registry: ClinicalTrials.gov, Title: The Impact of Sleep Apnea Treatment on Physiology Traits in Chinese Patients With Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Identifier: NCT02696629, URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02696629.

Study objectives

To test whether the integration of both anatomical and nonanatomical parameters (ventilatory control, arousal threshold, muscle responsiveness) in a physiology-based model will improve the ability to predict outcomes after upper airway surgery for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Methods

In 31 patients who underwent upper airway surgery for OSA, loop gain and arousal threshold were calculated from preoperative polysomnography (PSG). Three models were compared: (1) a multiple regression based on an extensive list of PSG parameters alone; (2) a multivariate regression using PSG parameters plus PSG-derived estimates of loop gain, arousal threshold, and other trait surrogates; (3) a physiological model incorporating selected variables as surrogates of anatomical and nonanatomical traits important for OSA pathogenesis.

Results

Although preoperative loop gain was positively correlated with postoperative apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) (P = .008) and arousal threshold was negatively correlated (P = .011), in both model 1 and 2, the only significant variable was preoperative AHI, which explained 42% of the variance in postoperative AHI. In contrast, the physiological model (model 3), which included AHI_REM (anatomy term), fraction of events that were hypopnea (arousal term), the ratio of AHI_REM and AHI_NREM (muscle responsiveness term), loop gain, and central/mixed apnea index (control of breathing terms), was able to explain 61% of the variance in postoperative AHI.

Conclusions

Although loop gain and arousal threshold are associated with residual AHI after surgery, only preoperative AHI was predictive using multivariate regression modeling. Instead, incorporating selected surrogates of physiological traits on the basis of OSA pathophysiology created a model that has more association with actual residual AHI.

Commentary

A commentary on this article appears in this issue on page 1023.

Clinical trial registration

ClinicalTrials.Gov; Title: The Impact of Sleep Apnea Treatment on Physiology Traits in Chinese Patients With Obstructive Sleep Apnea; Identifier: NCT02696629; URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02696629.