THE ADVANTAGE OF MESOPHARYNGOMETRY FOR UVULOPALATOPHARYNGOPLASTY
2000 Volume 43 Issue 1 Pages 31-36
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2000 Volume 43 Issue 1 Pages 31-36
The subjects of our study consisted of patients who snord or had sleep apnea and were scheduled to undergo uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP). We divided the 103 subjects into three groups and performed mesopharyngometry on the third group, 55 subjects, before and after surgery.
The mean length of the soft palate decreased from 27.2mm to 19.5mm. The distance between the two post-palatal arches and the uvula base to the tongue base were significantly longer. The mean ratio of the length of the hard palate to the length of the soft palate increased from 2.1±0.5 to 2.8±0.6 following surgery. These results indicate that the extent of the excision should be determined by the length ration of 3 to 1 between the hard palate and soft palate.
The subjects with UPPP had marked mesopharyngeal narrowing prior to surgery, compared to subjects with simple chronic tonsillitis, who did not snore or have sleep apnea. Our study found the mesopharyngometry to be a simple and useful method of evaluating oropharyngeal dimension for the UPPP procedure.
