FAA to issue new obstructive sleep apnea guidance for aviation medical examiners

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it will issue new guidance for aviation medical examiners (AMEs) regarding the screening and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in commercial pilots. The new guidance, which hopes to treat pilots fairly while at the same time increasing aviation safety, was created and approved with input from the industry, Congress, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

The FAA's new guidance for AMEs regarding sleep apnea pertains mostly to the screening approach of AMEs and does not change the FAA's medical certification standards for pilots. The new guidance will:

• Ask AMEs to evaluate OSA risk factors using more than body mass index (BMI) as an indicator.
• Remove complications and disincentives that may have been preventing some pilots from receiving an OSA diagnosis or from receiving OSA treatment.
• Allow pilots who have been flagged for OSA evaluation to continue to fly during their possible diagnosis and treatment.
• Require pilots to seek a special issuance medical certificate only after their sleep apnea has been diagnosed by a doctor and effectively treated.

The FAA originally proposed new AME sleep apnea guidelines in November 2013. The updated guidelines will be published for AMEs on March 2, 2015.

While the FAA and the federal government continue to grapple with the issue of sleep apnea and commercial vehicle operators, the medical community and sleep apnea sufferers have been seeking better and more effective treatments for OSA. Common barriers to successful OSA treatment in pilots include the high expense of treatment, the necessary time away from work needed for surgery, and the bulkiness, inconvenience, and discomfort of continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) devices.

In an effort to make sleep apnea treatments more efficient and effective, the surgeons at Surgical Sleep Solutions have developed a precise and unique treatment model that offers a 95 to 99 percent success rate. This innovative sleep apnea surgery pairs bimaxillary advancement surgery with one-on-one, patient-centered care.

"Pilots have little opportunity to take extended periods away from work and many don't have the resources or time to invest in a sleep apnea surgery that requires 4 to 6 weeks of recovery," said Surgical Sleep Solutions surgeon Dr. Clark O. Taylor. "We hope that our sleep apnea surgery offers a better and more practical option to pilots that will keep our pilots healthy and our skies safer."

Surgical Sleep Solution's bimaxillary advancement surgery reduces recovery time to 7 to 10 days and does not require a long hospital stay. The shortened recovery time and efficiency of the procedure also often translates to a lower overall treatment cost.

Untreated sleep apnea has always been a disqualifying medical condition for pilots. In the recorded past, the NTSB has determined that 34 aviation accidents and incidents have involved a pilot with a history of sleep apnea. Thirty-two of those incidents involved fatalities.