The Medical journal of Australia
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Surgery rarely cures OSA, but the lack of cure should not be judged as failure. New higher-level evidence shows excellent clinical outcomes with surgery, in long-term health, short-term symptoms and quality of life, even when complete cure is not achieved. ⋯ Evaluating surgical treatments is complicated because placebo control is usually not feasible with invasive therapies, randomisation to or away from invasive therapy may limit patient enrolment and generalisability, and surgery is a heterogeneous array of procedures and combinations of procedures. Despite these testing challenges, well controlled studies are showing important benefits of surgery and, moreover, of combinations of surgical procedures.