Obstructive sleep apnea following treatment of head and neck cancer.

A growing body of literature is suggesting that there is a link between head and neck cancer treated with radiation therapy and the development of obstructive sleep apnea/ hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS). We describe the case of a 54-year-old man with a history of head and neck cancer whose OSAHS had gone undiagnosed for 3 years. After the diagnosis was made on the basis of sleep study data, we determined that the OSAHS was a long-term complication of cervical radiation therapy that had been delivered to treat the patient's laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma 3 years earlier. We also review the literature regarding the association between head and neck cancer and the development of OSAHS.