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Bariatric surgery and obstructive sleep apnea: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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Abstract

Background

Several studies evaluated the effect of bariatric surgery on obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) but findings have been inconsistent. The aim of this study was to conduct an updated systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the effect of bariatric surgery on OSA.

Methods

The databases for PubMed, CENTRAL, and Scopus were searched up to the 1st of December, 2021. Studies were included if they were cohort or case–control in design, included patients with diagnosis of OSA, the patients underwent any bariatric surgery, and the study performed postoperative polysomnography.

Results

The total number of the included patients was 2310 patients with OSA from 32 studies. Our analysis showed that bariatric surgery was associated with significant reduction in BMI (WMD =  − 11.9, 95%CI: − 13.4, − 10.4), apnea–hypopnea index (AHI) (WMD =  − 19.3, 95%CI: − 23.9, − 14.6), and respiratory disturbance index (RDI) (WMD =  − 33.9, 95%CI: − 42.1, − 25.7). The rate of OSA remission after the surgery was 65% (95%CI: 0.54, 0.76).

Conclusion

Our results suggest that bariatric surgeries are effective in reducing obesity among patients with OSA in addition to OSA severity measures. However, the low rate of OSA remission suggests that the main etiology of OSA is not only obesity but also includes other important variables such as the anatomy of the jaw.

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Data availability

The data associated with this manuscript are available in the Supplementary Material.

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Author notes

  1. Khaled Al Oweidat and Ahmad A. Toubasi contributed equally to this manuscript.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan

    Khaled Al Oweidat

  2. Faculty of Medicine, The University of Jordan, Amman, 11942, Jordan

    Ahmad A. Toubasi, Raya B. Abu Tawileh, Hind B. Abu Tawileh & Manar M. Hasuneh

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  1. Khaled Al Oweidat
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  2. Ahmad A. Toubasi
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  3. Raya B. Abu Tawileh
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  4. Hind B. Abu Tawileh
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  5. Manar M. Hasuneh
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Contributions

KA and AAT were involved in conceptualization; KA, AAT, RHA, MMH, and HBA were involved in data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, resources, software, validation, visualization, and writing the original draft; KA, AAT, RHA, MMH, and HBA were involved in supervision and reviewing and editing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ahmad A. Toubasi.

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Al Oweidat, K., Toubasi, A.A., Tawileh, R.B.A. et al. Bariatric surgery and obstructive sleep apnea: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sleep Breath 27, 2283–2294 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-023-02840-1

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