Eleven patients with severe obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, which was fully reversed by treatment with nasal continuous positive airways pressure, underwent uvulopalatopharyngoplasty. All patients were followed for at least 12 months after surgery. One patient with large tonsils was cured. Of the remaining 10 patients, two showed minimal objective improvement at 12 months and the rest were unchanged. Four patients subsequently developed cardiac failure due to obstructive sleep apnoea. Thus uvulopalatopharyngoplasty was not effective in these patients with severe idiopathic obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome.

Habitual, loud snoring is common in the adult population, and may be the only symptom of the more serious Obstructive Sleep Apnoea syndrome. We report here our results of uvulo-palato-pharyngo-plasty (UPPP), with or without nasal surgery, for snoring. Quantitative grading of the severity of the snoring shows that all patients were cured of symptomatic snoring, but that snoring was not altogether abolished in all patients.

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