Does Sinus and/or Nasal Surgery Help with Sleep Apnea?

Bluntly, the answer is not really... Although it may make sense that improving nasal airflow should help with obstructive sleep apnea, the reality is that it does not make a profound difference. Indeed, there was a study in 2014 that looked into this question.

In this study, 3 groups of patients were looked at divided into patients with mild, moderate, or severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). These patients underwent sinus surgery, septoplasty, and turbinate reduction.

What was found was that patients with severe OSA with a mean AHI of 52 would go down to 43 (normal being less than 5) after surgery. Moderate OSA with a mean AHI of 22 down to 20. Patients with mild OSA did not have any significant changes to AHI at all.

In other words, for patients with moderate or severe OSA, although the AHI does decrease somewhat, it does not decrease enough that it really makes any clinical difference. Patients with moderate or severe OSA still had OSA... and still would need to use a CPAP or equivalent machine after surgery to correct their sleep apnea.

Although at first blush, these results may not make sense, it actually does make sense when you consider sleep apnea to be a multi-level disorder affecting not just the nose, but the throat as well.

For example, the back of the tongue may fall backwards obstructing the airway causing sleep apnea. Correcting nasal factors would have absolutely ZERO impact on tongue factors of OSA.

In order to determine where these other anatomic factors may be that may contribute to OSA, a sedated or sleep endoscopy is often performed. Watch the video below.

Granted, patients may STILL wish to pursue sino-nasal surgery due to discomfort with their sinuses and nasal breathing... but patients need to be aware that their OSA may still remain essentially unchanged!

Sino-nasal surgery may also help with CPAP compliance as lower pressures may be required to address OSA compared to before surgery. Why? Because the nasal passages are more open after surgery so it is easier to push air into lungs when using CPAP.

Reference:
Effects of Endoscopic Sinus Surgery and Nasal Surgery in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2014 Mar 31;151(1):171-175. [Epub ahead of print]