Recurrence After Laser Assisted Uvulopalatoplasty (LAUP), Long-Term Study

Laser assisted uvulopalatoplasty is a well established operation for treatment of snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea with good results on short term basis. However, long term follow-up studies, in addition to their scarcity, had conflicting results regarding the percentage of recurrences and the change of snoring quality. This is a long term retrospective follow up study conducted on 676 patients operated upon by laser assisted uvulopalatoplasty as an office based procedure in National Institute of Laser Enhanced Sciences, Cairo university. A specially designed questionnaire was used to ask the patients about the quality of snoring regarding its severity, relation to sleeping position and loudness and all was expressed using visual analogue score. The patients were asked for weight and neck circumference. The patients were evaluated preoperatively, 6 weeks postoperatively and on long term follow-up (mean 59 months). After the initial improvement 6 weeks postoperatively, on long term evaluation, 64.5% had reported recurrence, however, the recurrence showed marked improvement in snoring quality subjectively in the three criteria examined. In conclusion, laser assisted uvulopalatoplasty is a good operation for snoring but with long term recurrence, which can be explained by the gain of extra weight.