A new treatment in which surgeons implant a chip on a critical nerve could mean relief for the 8m people in the UK with sleep apnoea, which has been linked to hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes and even death.
Sky News reports that one of the first NHS operations involving this technology was carried out on a patient at University College London Hospitals (UCLH) last month.
Natalie Boller, who has had sleep apnoea for 10 years, sometimes stops breathing up to 30 times an hour, and said her husband had become very worried she might die.
She only became aware of her problem when her husband became concerned.
For the procedure, surgeons made a small incision under her chin, then placed the chip on a nerve that controls a muscle in her tongue.
Consultant sleep surgeon Ryan Chin Taw Cheong said the chip sends “a mild electrical pulse to stimulate the nerve, to move the tongue forward, and opens up the upper airways”.
This allows patients to have a better sleep and breathe smoothly throughout the night.
Until now, the most common treatment has been a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine.
A pump blows air through a mask into the mouth and throat, keeping the airway open. But it is so uncomfortable a third of patients stop using it.
UCLH is the first NHS centre to offer two slightly different chips – one called Genio Nyxoah and the other Inspire – to patients with moderate or severe sleep apnoea.
Patients return to the hospital around six to eight weeks after the operation to have the implant switched on and the level of stimulation adjusted to a comfortable level.
They are then able to turn on the device with a remote control or a smartphone app when they go to bed.
Some patients sleep so soundly that they even start to dream for the first time in years.
‘I look forward to going to bed’
Olivia Rushton was fitted with a nerve stimulator in June and has just returned to hospital to be monitored overnight.
Her tongue moves out of the way just as it should when the device is activated, and interruptions to her breathing while she sleeps have dropped by almost two thirds.
“I look forward to going to bed now,” she said.
Surgeons will continue adjusting the frequency of the nerve stimulation to increase the effectiveness without causing her discomfort.
The UCLH team said the operation is being limited to a small number of patients who can’t use CPAP machines and are most likely to benefit from the implant.
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