TY - JOUR T1 - Soft cervical collar in obstructive sleep apnoea: a pilot study JF - ERJ Open Research JO - erjor DO - 10.1183/23120541.00431-2020 VL - 7 IS - 1 SP - 00431-2020 AU - Philippe Bordier AU - Aurélia Lataste AU - Sébastien Orazio AU - Jérémy Papin AU - Frédéric Robert AU - Ghalia Bourenane Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://openres.ersjournals.com/content/7/1/00431-2020.abstract N2 - A soft cervical collar is a simple-to-use, noninvasive, nonintrusive, cheap and comfortable external support that can be used after cervical surgery or injuries such as whiplash [1, 2]. It limits cervical and head movements such as antero-posterior flexion/extension and backward motion of the mandible [3, 4]. In obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), upper airway obstruction can be caused by anterior flexion of the head or by backward seesaw motion of the mandible and the tongue in supine position [3, 5–7]. Prior to a randomised controlled trial (RCT) using such a support to treat OSA, we assessed in a pilot study 1) night tolerance of the soft cervical collar in patients with OSA; 2) alteration of pharyngeal patency according to polygraphy data with this support in OSA; and 3) trial population size for conclusive results.In severe obstructive sleep apnoea, a soft cervical collar was well tolerated at night in 10 patients with no changes in polygraphy results. With the same design, a randomised controlled trial would need 246 inclusions for conclusive results. https://bit.ly/2KiU3j1Special thanks to Alan Metcalfe for his help in the present article. ER -