Oral Functional Behavior and Neurosensation After Adult Maxillomandibular Advancement for Obstructive Sleep Apnea in the Long-Term.

Purpose: We evaluated and correlated the long-term subjective perioral neurosensory deficit intensity and oral functional behavior difficulty after maxillomandibular advancement (MMA) for adult obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Patients And Methods: We implemented a long-term retrospective cohort study of adult subjects who had undergone MMA for OSA, with subjective assessments using 7-point visual analog scales. Adult subjects who had undergone MMA for OSA with a minimum of 5 years of follow-up data available who had agreed to participate were included in the present study. The 1-sample Wilcoxon signed rank test and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the data. Statistical significance was set at the P < .05 level.

Results: Of the 51 eligible subjects, 27 (53% response rate) were included in the present study. The mean age preoperatively was 59.8 years, with a mean follow-up of 12.7 years. Most subjects (85%) had, overall, reported the long-term subjective perioral neurosensory deficit intensity to be none to very mild (mode, 0; mean, 2.20; P < .05) and oral functional behavior to have none to very mild difficulty (mode, 0; mean, 1.6; P < .05). Statistically significant moderate to strong positive correlations between the subjective assessments of oral functional behavior and perioral neurosensory deficit intensity were found for chewing (r = 0.74), kissing (r = 0.50), eating (r = 0.80), speaking (r = 0.81), and drooling (r = 0.67).

Conclusions: Within the limitations of the present study, more than 12 years after MMA for severe OSA, most subjects (85%) had minimal to no subjective perioral neurosensory deficits and very minimal to no difficulty in the subjective assessment of oral functional behavior. Strong positive correlations between the subjective decreased perioral neurosensory deficit intensity and decreased oral function behavior difficulty suggest that the return of perioral neurosensation might contribute to the return of oral functional behavior.