Effectiveness of oral pressure therapy in obstructive sleep apnea: a systematic analysis

Oral pressure therapy (OPT) has emerged as a novel technique to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in the past few years. Given this is a relatively new treatment approach, currently, little is known with respect to its clinical utility. The aim of this review was to explore the success rate of OPT when used to treat OSA. PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library databases were searched for pertinent studies. The OPT treatment success rates varied widely between 25 and 79 % depending on the residual apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) cut off defined for treatment success. When using standard definitions (at least 50 % reduction from the baseline AHI and the post-OPT treatment residual AHI less than or equal to 10), the success rate of OPT treatment varied between 25 and 37 %. Although there was a significant reduction in AHI with OPT, the baseline AHI was not suppressed in majority of patients to the extent to call these patients as optimally treated. Successful treatment with OPT did not correlate with severity of OSA; however, patients with retro-palatal collapse responded better to treatment. Further research is needed to identify OSA patients who would benefit with this treatment modality.