Long-term surgical follow-up of sleep apnea syndrome.

During a 10-year period, 845 patients suspected of having sleep apnea syndrome underwent overnight monitoring at our institution. We report herein the results of a study of 204 surgical patients who responded to a questionnaire survey. Of these 204 cases, 86 (42%) showed a > or = 75% postoperative improvement in the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) (or AHI < 10) and 48 (24%) showed an improvement of > or = 50%. Based on the data obtained from the questionnaire survey we studied the long-term postoperative improvement as well as the long-term prognosis in terms of the postoperative improvements in AHI and body weight.