Why UPPP Alone Generally Fails

For years, Ear, Nose & Throat physicians (and some Oral Maxillofacial surgeons) routinely performed UPPP and sometimes nasal surgery to treat Obstructive Sleep Apnea, avoiding surgeries to the base of tongue and upper airway primarily because the surgical treatment options of the day comprised difficult, invasive, time-consuming and painful modalities. As a result, studies following UPPP only patients uniformly revealed a 40-50% cure rate for patients suffering from OSA.

The reason for this low success rate is that the majority of OSA patients suffer from multi-level obstruction (i.e. palate, tongue, upper airway and nose). For instance, one pivitol study out of Stanford University followed 416 moderate to severe sleep apneics, wherein 87% suffered from multi-level obstruction. Clearly, for the average person afflicted with OSA, UPPP and nasal surgery alone is rarely enough to significantly reduce their risk or end their dependency on CPAP. With the advent of the Repose Genioglossus Advancement and Hyoid Myotomy procedures, patients and physicians can now achieve average reductions in RDI ranging from 75%-90% when performing the Repose procedures in tandem with UPPP.