Determining which obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) option works best for individual patients remains a significant challenge and patient access to the different treatments varies across Canada.
To offer health care providers and policy-makers guidance on treating OSA,Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) CADTH and its Health Technology Expert Review Panel (HTERP) have published new evidence-informed recommendations.
Highlights:
- For patients with mild OSA who are not overweight or obese: HTERP does not recommend active treatment.
- For patients with mild OSA who are overweight or obese: HTERP recommends lifestyle interventions.
- For patients with moderate or severe OSA: HTERP recommends continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). For those same patients for whom CPAP is unacceptable, HTERP recommends the use of oral appliances.
- HTERP does not recommend surgical maxillomandibular advancement in patients with OSA, unless other interventions have failed or are unacceptable to the patient.
“Sleep apnea robs people of the quality rest that we know is essential to good health,” says Stirling Bryan, MS, PhD, chair of HTERP and director of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Centre, in a release. “This was top of mind for the panel and we worked hard to give decision-makers recommendations that are guided by the best evidence and will help people living with OSA get the best possible outcomes from their treatment.”
The recommendations and supporting evidence reports are available at www.cadth.ca/OSA.
