Innovative treatments for adults with obstructive sleep apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects one in five adult males and is associated with significant comorbidity, cognitive impairment, excessive daytime sleepiness, and reduced quality of life. For over 25 years, the primary treatment has been continuous positive airway pressure, which introduces a column of air that serves as a pneumatic splint for the upper airway, preventing the airway collapse that is the physiologic definition of this syndrome. However, issues with patient tolerance and unacceptable levels of treatment adherence motivated the exploration of other potential treatments. With greater understanding of the physiologic mechanisms associated with OSA, novel interventions have emerged in the last 5 years. The purpose of this article is to describe new treatments for OSA and associated complex sleep apnea. New approaches to complex sleep apnea have included adaptive servoventilation. There is increased literature on the contribution of behavioral interventions to improve adherence with continuous positive airway pressure that have proven quite effective. New non-surgical treatments include oral pressure devices, improved mandibular advancement devices, nasal expiratory positive airway pressure, and newer approaches to positional therapy. Recent innovations in surgical interventions have included laser-assisted uvulopalatoplasty, radiofrequency ablation, palatal implants, and electrical stimulation of the upper airway muscles. No drugs have been approved to treat OSA, but potential drug therapies have centered on increasing ventilatory drive, altering the arousal threshold, modifying loop gain (a dimensionless value quantifying the stability of the ventilatory control system), or preventing airway collapse by affecting the surface tension. An emerging approach is the application of cannabinoids to increase upper airway tone.