Drug Induced Submental Ultrasound in Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a syndrome characterized by recurrent episodes of apnea and hypopnea during sleep that are caused by repetitive upper airway (UA) collapse and often result in decreased blood oxygen levels and arousal from sleep. Successful treatment lies in precise mapping the site of airway narrowing.

Drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) is a well described modality to mimic the dynamic change of UA in OSA patients during natural sleep. Nevertheless, the tongue base thickness (TBT), one of the important anatomic factors in OSA, is hard to evaluate under this method. Recently, submental ultrasound (US), the noninvasive and convenient tool, has been widely applied to measure the TBT in awake OSA patients, so as to predict the severity and relationship with UA collapse. However, few evidence has addressed the relationship between UA collapse and the TBT in different head positions, awake and sleep period In this study, submental US during awake and drug induced sleep period is applied in the diagnostic workup of OSA patients. By correlation with DISE findings, more parameters could be used for evaluation and management of upper airway collapse in OSA patients.

Key Words: Submental ultrasound, Obstructive sleep apnea, Drug-induced sleep endoscopy