Thyroid Surgery Reduces Sleep Apnea Symptoms

A new study demonstrates that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) symptom scores can improve substantially after thyroidectomy, including a significant decrease in snoring frequency.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin (Madison, USA) conducted a study to examine whether thyroidectomy can improve symptoms of OSA. To do so, they administered the Berlin questionnaire, a sleep apnea assessment tool, to 45 patients who reported symptoms of snoring before and 8 weeks after thyroidectomy to evaluate for any improvement in symptoms. Of these patients, 71% scored positive in at least two symptom categories on the questionnaire, meaning that they were at high risk for sleep apnea. After surgery, however, this number decreased to 51%.

The results also indicated considerable improvement in overall scores after surgery, especially notable decreases in snoring frequency, and whether patients' snoring bothered other people. The researchers also observed a drop in the frequency of patients nodding off during the day. The study was presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association, held during October 2011 in Indian Wells (CA, USA).

“Obstructive sleep apnea is obviously a complex problem with numerous causes, but we find it encouraging that thyroidectomy alone can provide significant improvements in nearly a third of patients, regardless of gland size,” said study author and study presenter Rebecca Sippel, MD, section chief of endocrine surgery. “A good follow-up study to this would be to actually perform overnight sleep studies before and after surgery and see if patients' apneic scores improve. That would be a more direct way of measuring improvement.”

Thyroidectomy involves the surgical removal of all or part of the thyroid gland, indicated usually for treatment of thyroid cancer or other conditions of the thyroid gland, such as hyperthyroidism and symptomatic obstruction. One of the complications of thyroidectomy is voice change, however, surgeons can protect the voice by using electronic nerve monitoring. Most thyroidectomies are performed by minimally invasive surgery. Evaluation of patients with OSA usually includes an assessment for goiter.

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