Dynamic Tongue Area Measurements by Ultrasound Images for Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a multifactorial condition characterized by intermittent hypoventilation, common arousal, and fragmented sleep due to a combination of anatomical neuromuscular modifications.Aim: To measure the dynamic tongue area by ultrasound (US) in cases of OSA and to detect the value of tongue base anatomy in the diagnosis of OSA.Patients and methods: This research was performed on fifty cases with 20 individual controls in the chest department, Al-Hussien University Hospital, from May 2023 to April 2024.Results: Studying the polysomnographic results to the classification of OSA revealed that apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) events increase with the severity of OSA, snoring events decrease with the severity of OSA, oxygen saturation decreases with severe OSA, arousal index increases with the severity of OSA, and sleep efficiency worsened with the severity of OSA. Statistically significant variances were observed regarding the severity of OSA and all polysomnographic parameters. AHI events were directly proportional to tongue base thickness (TBT), snoring events were directly proportional to TBT, Oxygen saturation was inversely proportional to TBT, arousal index was directly proportional to TBT, and sleep efficiency was inversely proportional to TBT.Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that TBT evaluated via ultrasonography is significant as an indicator for diagnosis of OSA and significantly correlates with OSA severity. Within 50 patients undergoing polysomnography, greater TBT showed a significant direct relationship with the apnea-hypopnea index as well as other indicators of OSA severity like oxygen desaturation and arousal frequency.Keywords: OSA; dynamic tongue area;