Palate Surgery

What is unique about UCLA Sleep Surgery?

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Snoring, Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

My move to UCLA was based on the opportunity to work with a larger team of sleep medicine providers and researchers, including other surgeons who focused in this area: Ashley Kita, MD and Travis Shiba, MD. We have just posted some videos on our UCLA Sleep Surgery website page explaining what we do as surgeons…

ISSS Miami 2024: Nyxoah, LivaNova updates

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

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….

Palate shape is associated with palate surgery outcomes

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery.

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…

UCLA Sleep Apnea Surgery Clinical Trial: Combining Surgery with Medications

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery.

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…

ISSS and AAO-HNSF 2023 Sleep Surgery Research Highlights

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Sleep Apnea, Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

Nashville, TN was the site of both the 2023 International Surgical Sleep Society (ISSS) Educational Symposium and American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Foundation Annual Meeting. It is always wonderful to see colleagues and long-time friends. However, I wanted to take the chance to share some of what I found to be… Read more »

New research evaluates trouble swallowing after sleep apnea surgery

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Sleep Apnea, Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

Surgery for obstructive sleep apnea often involves surgery of the throat that removes, repositions, and/or tightens tissue. Although the goal is to improve or eliminate the sleep apnea, the risks include the potential to disrupt normal function, especially speech and swallowing. Fortunately, speech changes have always been rare, but changes in swallowing have always been… Read more »

Advances in Sleep Apnea and Snoring 2022 Course Highlights

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Sleep Apnea, Snoring, Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

We have just completed the 27th Annual Advances in Diagnosis and Treatment of Sleep Apnea and Snoring course in San Francisco, California. It has been wonderful to be a co-director for about 15 years, and I learn so much myself in every course. This year we did something different: a virtual format! We can thank… Read more »

How long do the benefits of sleep surgery last?

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

Like most surgical treatments throughout medicine, research studies typically evaluate short-term outcomes. In sleep surgery, most studies report results at 3-6 months following surgery. There are notable exceptions – including 5-year outcomes reported for Inspire Upper Airway Stimulation in the STAR Trial presented at the Sleep 2017 meeting and then published in the medical journal… Read more »

Sleep Apnea Multilevel Surgery (SAMS) Randomized Trial: Surgery Improves the AHI and Sleepiness More than Conservative Treatment

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Sleep Apnea, Surgery, Tongue Surgery.

Well-done randomized trials offer the highest-quality scientific evaluation of any medical intervention. Unfortunately, randomized trials of surgical interventions are extremely difficult to perform, for numerous reasons. In sleep surgery, there have been a number of randomized trials showing that surgical treatment of obstructive sleep apnea can offer important benefits that matter to patients. These include… Read more »

Antibiotics are associated with lower odds of bleeding after soft palate surgery for OSA

Posted by & filed under Palate Surgery, Sleep Apnea, Surgery.

One of the many benefits of working at an academic medical center is the opportunity to work with residents and fellows, where I am often explaining the research evidence supporting the decisions I make in taking care of patients. In every field of medicine, there are decisions that we make in the absence of perfect… Read more »