Improvement of Obstructive Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome in Morbidly Obese Patients Undergoing Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy: Prospective Study

Introduction: Obesity is a complex disease with multiple aspects that is associated with different health comorbidities including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The aim of this study is to evaluate outcome of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) in morbidly obese patients with OSA. Patients and Methods: A total of 79 morbidly obese patients with OSA who underwent LSG were included. Preoperative anthropometric measurements, Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score, polysomnography (PSG), and blood samples for six inflammatory biomarker assessments were done for all patients. Results: Postoperative ESS score was significantly lower than preoperative values (5.04 + 3.03 vs. 9.25 + 3.69, respectively, p < 0.001). Similarly, postoperative apnea-hypopnea index was significantly lower than preoperative values (14.04 + 9.8 vs. 27.3 + 12.54, respectively, p < 0.001). Initially, there were 16 patients on continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, after follow-up period, 10 patients discontinued CPAP. At 1-year follow-up, there were highly statistically significant improvements of OSA grade and metabolic comorbidities. Moreover, all six studied inflammatory biomarkers (high-sensitive C-reactive protein [hs-CRP], plasma fibrinogen, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, uric acid, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha) were significantly lower than preoperative values (p < 0.001). Conclusions: LSG is a successful treatment modality, with negligible morbidity and mortality, for patients with all grades of OSA.