Maxillomandibular advancement is an effective surgical option for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) that achieves enlargement of the upper airway by physically expanding the facial skeleton. The authors sought to determine whether an advancement of 10 mm predicts surgical success and if any correlation existed between the magnitude of mandibular/maxillary advancement and improvement in polysomnography metrics using aggregated individual patient data from multiple studies.
A search of the PubMed database was performed to identify relevant articles that included preoperative and postoperative polysomnography data and measurements of the advancement of both the maxillary and mandibular portions of the face in patients with normal or class I malocclusion. Each patient was stratified into “Success” or “Failure” groups based on criteria defining a “Success” as a 50% preoperative to post-operative decrease in AHI or RDI and a post-operative AHI or RDI <20.
A review of the PubMed database yielded 162 articles. Review of these resulted in 9 manuscripts and a total of 109 patients who met the inclusion criteria. There was no statistically significant difference in the amount of anterior advancement of either the mandible (P = 0.96) or the maxilla (P = 0.23) between the “Success” or “Failure” groups.
While there is a paucity of individual data available, the current data does not support an ideal amount of maxillary or mandibular advancement that is required to obtain a surgical success in the treatment of OSA. Until a multicenter, prospective, randomized trial is performed, surgical planning should be tailored to patient-specific anatomy to achieve the desired result.

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