Therapeutic Comparison of Two Oral Appliances on Obstructive Sleep Apnea/Hypopnea Syndrome

Objective To compare the objective and subjective effects of two oral appliances in patients with OSAHS.Methods A crossover design trial was carried out in 16 OSAHS patients who wore mono-block and two-piece appliances in turn.Each oral appliance needed to be worn for 3 months.There was a two-week washout period between appliance switch.The objective and subjective effects were assessed at the end of wearing oral appliance.One-way ANOVA was carried out to evaluate the parameters.Results Both oral appliances showed remarkable efficacy in OSAHS patients.But the mono-block appliance had less improvement in Sleep Efficiency(SE) and Percentage of Delta period( Delta％ )(P＜0.05).Both oral appliances could increase obviously the each segment of upper airway(P＜0.05).But there was no significant difference between the two oral appliances(P ＞0.05).Conclusions Both oral appliances had good efficacies in the treatment of OSAHS.Due to the different characteristics of each appliance,there were more alternatives for OSAHS patients. Key words: obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome;  mono-block oral appliance;  twopiece oral appliance;  upper airway;  objective and subjective effects