[Principles of surgical treatment of obstructive sleep apnea by interventions on the facial bones].

The clinical picture of the obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is caused by a multifactorial etiology. Therefore a lot of different conservative as well as surgical therapeutic approaches are discussed. In approximately 40% of the patients an obstruction of the pharyngeal airway is combined with an abnormal sagittal morphology of the skull. In these cases a simultaneous maxillomandibular advancement by at least 10 mm seems to be a causal therapy, leading to an enlargement of the pharyngeal airways. The current therapeutic results are roughly stable up to a period of approximately 3 years. Requirement of this therapy is the exclusion and/or the prior therapy of an extreme obesity, which can favour the manifestation of an obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.