The effectiveness of mandibular advancement devices in the treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea in adults: a methodological quality assessment of systematic reviews

Background and objectives: There is growing interest in the use of mandibular advancement devices (MADs) for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Many systematic reviews (SRs) have investigated their effectiveness, but the applicability of SR results is affected by their methodological quality. This study critically appraises the methodological quality of SRs on this topic using a more detailed and updated version of A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews (AMSTAR).

Materials and methods: The literature was searched for SRs on MAD effectiveness in adults (≥18 years of age) for OSA treatment as compared with other non-surgical or surgical interventions or no intervention. Any objective or subjective measures of treatment outcome were considered eligible. AMSTAR2 was used to assess methodological quality.

Results: The literature search yielded 64 potential reports; 10 met the eligibility criteria. All SRs had more than one critical flaw in AMSTAR2, so their methodological quality was rated as critically low. The most common issues included non-registration of study protocol, absence of list of excluded studies, no acknowledgment of fundings of included studies, no impact of risk of bias on SR results or interpretation and discussion of results, and data extraction not in duplicate.

Limitations: If a SR was not clearly identified by title or abstract as a SR or meta-analysis, it may have been missed during the screening process.

Conclusions: The methodological quality of SRs was suboptimal and warrants further improvement in order to provide strong evidence of MAD effectiveness and increase applicability of SR results for clinical decision-making.