Nasal patency and the effectiveness of nasal continuous positive air pressure XXXX .

@entity1 @entity27 @entity387 @entity386
Nasal airway obstruction may exacerbate @entity387 and is difficult to quantify on clinical examination. In this study, we examined the relationship among nasal patency, the frequency of @entity387 events, and effective nasal continuous positive air pressures. Acoustic rhinometry was used as an objective measurement of nasal cross-sectional areas in 76 @entity1 without nasal symptoms who underwent study with diagnostic polysomnography because of @entity27 . @entity1 with @entity27 were titrated to nasal continuous positive air pressure in a split night study. All subjects had a mean @entity386 / @entity387 index of 28, and those with @entity27 had a mean @entity386 / @entity387 index of 43. Mean cross-sectional areas 1 to 4 cm into the nose were 1.7, 1.1, 2.1, and 2.8 cm2, respectively (F = 39, p < 0.001). However, there was no correlation between the @entity386 / @entity387 index and the cross-sectional area at the four distances (r = 0.03, 0.06, 0.02, and 0.02, respectively, p = not significant). Correlations between nasal continuous positive air pressures and cross-sectional areas did not reveal a significant relationship at any of the four sites (r = 0.09, 0.07, -0.03, 0.00, respectively). Findings in @entity1 with @entity386 were also compared with those in @entity1 without @entity386 and significant differences were not found (F = 0.019, p = not significant). Although it would seem intuitive that increased nasal obstruction is associated with the severity of @entity27 and difficulty with the use of nasal continuous positive air pressure, this study shows that nasal patency, as measured by acoustic rhinometry, does not correlate with the severity of @entity27 , as determined by the @entity386 / @entity387 index or the effective nasal continuous positive air pressure.
