A thin-plate spline analysis of the face and tongue in obstructive sleep apnea patients

The shape characteristics of the face and tongue in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients were investigated using thin-plate (TP) splines. A relatively new analytic tool, the TP spline method, provides a means of size normalization and image analysis. When shape is one's main concern, various sizes of a biologic structure may be a source of statistical noise. More seriously, the strong size effect could mask underlying, actual attributes of the disease. A set of size normalized data in the form of coordinates was generated from cephalograms of 80 male subjects. The TP spline method envisioned the differences in the shape of the face and tongue between OSA patients and nonapneic subjects and those between the upright and supine body positions. In accordance with OSA severity, the hyoid bone and the submental region positioned inferiorly and the fourth vertebra relocated posteriorly with respect to the mandible. This caused a fanlike configuration of the lower part of the face and neck in the sagittal plane in both upright and supine body positions. TP splines revealed tongue deformations caused by a body position change. Overall, the new morphometric tool adopted here was found to be viable in the analysis of morphologic changes. Received: 4 April 1997 / Accepted: 15 September 1997