Effect on Sleep of Surgical Treatment of Severe Nasal Obstruction

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA) is a sleep breathing disorder characterised by episodes of complete or partial obstruction of the upper airway. OSA is a common disease which impacts quality of life, mood, cardiovascular morbidity, and mortality. It is often under-diagnosed and is estimated to affect at least 2-5% of the female population and 3-7% of the male population. Currently, nasal obstruction is not recognised as an independent risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. The current definition of OSA is based on an Apnea/Hypopnea index (AHI) greater than five. However, most studies do not find a decrease in this index after nasal desobstruction surgery despite a significant improvement in sleep quality scales. The AHI index appears to be a limited paraclinical criteria to assess the impact of nasal obstruction on sleep quality. Other objective paraclinical criteria have been used in other nosological sleep settings to objectively assess sleep quality. These include the WASO (wake after sleep onset) criteria. To investigators knowledge, no study has assessed this parameter before and after a nasal desobstruction surgery. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of nasal desobstruction surgery (septoplasty, septorhinoplasty or total ethmoidectomy) on sleep quality, assessed by the variation of the objective paraclinical criteria WASO, in patients presenting with sleep disorders and severe nasal obstruction.