Dr. Kezirian’s Blog

Surgery often comes with pain during the healing process, and recovery from soft palate surgery for obstructive sleep apnea, in particular, is painful. There is wide variation in approaches taken to pain management after soft palate surgery, and I was fortunate to be involved in a 2019 publication from an international group presenting consensus-based recommendations… Read more »

Mouth taping is one of many approaches marketed aggressively for snoring and obstructive sleep apnea without careful scientific evaluation. There is some evidence that mouth breathing can be associated with increased overall airway resistance and narrowing, both of which are unfavorable. The more-important question is whether closure of the mouth – possibly with mouth taping… Read more »

Drug-induced sleep endoscopy is an evaluation procedure designed to evaluate the physical cause(s) of blockage in breathing in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. One of the reasons we are recognized around the world for our leadership is the scientific research we have led in this area. One of the major studies showed that specific findings… Read more »

NOTE: I am a paid consultant to Nyxoah, reviewing preoperative drug-induced sleep endoscopy videos. I have no access to any data regarding treatment outcomes. The just-concluded 2024 Miami International Surgical Sleep Society meeting included presentation of long-awaited trials from Nyxoah’s DREAM study and a number of other important presentations for the field of sleep surgery…. Read more »

Mentoring and training the next generation of leaders in the field is one of the great joys of my career. I have been fortunate to train numerous sleep surgeons who are achieving tremendous things and already surpassing what I have accomplished in my career. In 2017, I wrote about a sleep surgery fellowship program that… Read more »

DISCLAIMER: I am a consultant for Nyxoah, who manufactures a technology mentioned in this blog post. Inspire Medical Systems’ Upper Airway Stimulation is the only FDA-approved treatment of obstructive sleep apnea based on stimulation of the nerve that controls tongue movement (hypoglossal nerve). Based on their successes, a number of other technologies are in clinical… Read more »

Previous blog posts have discussed our research centered on two large databases that include patients from centers around the world to examine how drug-induced sleep endoscopy findings are associated with outcomes of sleep apnea surgery. We have shown that specific different types of sleep apnea surgery and Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation. In this blog, I… Read more »

My career in sleep apnea surgery is based on the principle that successful surgery should focus on the physical cause(s) of blockage of breathing for each patient. We can determine these physical cause(s) with different evaluations that examine an individual patient’s anatomy that is the source of these physical cause(s). I have focused on the… Read more »

The last thing anyone wants is to undergo surgery without achieving results. This idea has been the focus of my career in sleep surgery. It has been wonderful to contribute to advancing our understanding about the physical causes of obstructive sleep apnea and ways we can optimize our preoperative evaluation to select procedures. This work… Read more »

As a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, I receive electronic access to the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. I browse the Table of Contents but generally find that most of the articles are related to general surgery or subspecialties within that field (which used to be true for head and neck… Read more »