Cervical vertebral anomalies in patients with obstructive sleep apnea

Objective: The aim of this study was to find an association between the patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and with cervical vertebral anomalies and any further correlation between various anomalies with varying severities of OSA. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted lateral cephalograms of 70 subjects who were diagnosed with OSA and 70 other orthodontic patients who were selected as a control group. The lateral radiographs of both cases and controls were traced and findings were recorded. Results: In total, 21.42% of subjects in the OSA group and 8.57% in the control group were affected with cervical vertebrae anomalies. The statistical analysis reveals that the number of subjects affected with cervical vertebrae anomalies in OSA group is highly significant. A number of cases of fusion were higher than posterior arch deficiency in OSA group and equal in the control group. However, in both the groups, the number of cases with two vertebrae fusion was higher. Further, the higher number of two vertebrae fusion cases in OSA group was found to be statistically significant. The findings of one-way ANOVA for OSA cases reveals the number of cases affected with cervical vertebrae anomalies were statistically highly significant (P < 0.01) in severe cases of OSA. Conclusion: Patients of cervical vertebral anomalies may be at higher risk of developing OSA, and the possibility of the presence of cervical vertebral anomalies may increase with the increase in the severity of OSA. The most common vertebral anomaly was found to be two vertebral fusions