Evaluation of respiratory parameters in patients treated with functional devices

Aim: the main objective of our study was to evaluate the clinical appropriateness of Mallampati score in pa-tients with potential sleep disorders treated with functional orthodontic devices. Methods: patients of the orthodontic operative unit of Rho hospital, age between 7 and 14 years old, needing an orthodontic therapy with functional appliances were evaluated. Patient were assessed at three time points evaluating the Mallampati score, a sleep questionnaire, and panoramic radiographs and lateral cephalometric teleradiographs. Results: 100 patients met the inclusion criteria and were enrolled. The 36% of the patients had a skeletal class I while the other 64% had a skeletal class II. The Mallampati score at T0, was as follows: Mallampati II 47%, Mallampati III 38%, Mallampati IV 15% and the entity of sleep disorders reported in the questionnaire fol-lowed the trend of the Mallampati score. At T1, after 12 months, and at T2, after 15-20 months there were sim-ilar results: the 76% of Mallampati Ill and 47% the Mallampati || patients showed a decrease of the score while patients with stage IV were often diagnosed with macroglossia and only in the 30% of cases there was an im-provement. Conclusions: Mallampati score is a useful and appropriate index for the evaluation of respiratory parameters but we suggest to use it in association with other clinical and radiological indices for the purpose of a more complete evaluation of the patient without the use of further instrumental tests.