Anatomical balance of the upper airway in Japanese and Caucasian patients with obstructive sleep apnea

肥胖和颅面畸形是阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停（OSA）患者的常见特征。颅面刚性外壳（由牙列、颈椎、上颌骨和下颌骨形成）的大小与软组织（例如，G.舌）影响上呼吸道空间，并参与OSA的发病机制。在这项研究中，我们调查了这种解剖平衡是否在OSA人群中的种族之间存在差异。在匹配性别（男性）、年龄和呼吸暂停低通气指数后，对76例日本OSA患者和74例白人OSA患者进行了舌横截面积和颅面尺寸的盲法测量。比较两组间舌的大小、矢状面上下颌的大小和体重指数（BMI）。虽然白种人的BMI显著高于日本患者，但舌头大小和上下颌尺寸在种族之间没有差异。这些发现表明，在相同的OSA严重程度下，日本OSA患者和高加索OSA患者的解剖平衡没有差异。这可能部分解释了为什么日本人和白人的OSA患病率几乎相同。

Obesity and craniofacial abnormalities are common features of patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea(OSA). Anatomical balance between the size of the craniofacial rigid enclosure(formed by the dentitions, cervical vertebrae, maxilla, and mandible) and the amount of soft tissue(e. g. tongue) influences the upper airway space and is involved in the pathogenesis of OSA. In this study, we investigated whether this anatomical balance was different between races in OSA people. Blind measurements of tongue cross-sectional area and craniofacial dimensions were performed two dimensionally through lateral cephalograms in 76 Japanese patients with OSA and 74 Caucasian OSA subjects after matching gender(male), age, and apnea hypopnea index. Sagittal tongue size, sagittal maxillomandibular dimensions, and body mass index(BMI) were compared between the groups. While BMI was significantly higher in Caucasians than in Japanese patients, tongue size and maxillomandibular dimensions were not different between the races. These findings suggest that anatomical balance does not differ between Japanese OSA people and Caucasian OSA persons under the same OSA severity. This may partly account for the reason why prevalence of OSA are almost the same between Japanese and Caucasians.