Complications associated with surgical treatment of sleep-disordered breathing among hospitalized U.S. adults

The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to examine the relationship between surgical treatments for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) and composite measure of surgical complications in a nationally representative sample of hospital discharges among U.S. adults. We performed secondary analyses of 33,679 hospital discharges from the 2002–2012 Nationwide Inpatient Sample that corresponded to U.S. adults (≥18 years) who were free of head-and-neck neoplasms, were diagnosed with SDB and had undergone at least one of seven procedures. Multivariate logistic regression models were constructed to estimate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and obesity diagnoses. Positive associations were found between composite measure of surgical complications and specific procedures: palatal procedure (aOR = 12.69, 95% CI: 11.91,13.53), nasal surgery (aOR = 6.47, 95% CI: 5.99,6.99), transoral robotic assist (aOR = 5.06, 95% CI: 4.34–5.88), tongue base/hypopharynx (aOR = 4.24, 95% CI: 3.88,4.62), maxillomandibular advancement (MMA) (aOR = 3.24, 95% CI: 2.74,3.84), supraglottoplasty (aOR = 2.75, 95% CI: 1.81,4.19). By contrast, a negative association was found between composite measures of surgical complications and tracheostomy (aOR = 0.033, 95% CI: 0.031,0.035). In conclusion, most procedures for SDB, except tracheostomy, were positively associated with complications, whereby palatal procedures exhibited the strongest and supraglottoplasty exhibited the weakest association.