My website and this blog provide what I hope is an useful educational resource for my patients and others, but I know that many patients with snoring and obstructive sleep apnea will never reach it. As such, I have contributed to two online resources that reach larger audiences. I am a content author for sleep… Read more »
Palate Surgery
News from the 2013 AAO-HNS Annual Meeting
Last week, I participated in the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. This meeting always includes a number of excellent sessions focused on surgery for snoring and obstructive sleep apnea, and this year was no exception. My favorite session was a discussion of how surgeons might choose from among the… Read more »
SKUP3: a major step forward in sleep apnea surgery research
Note: tomorrow I will join the #SleepHealth Twitter chat at 10-11 am PST. I look forward to the interesting discussion on a wide range of sleep topics. Many medications are evaluated with randomized trials, in which patients with a medical problem are randomized to receive either the medication or a pill that does not contain… Read more »
Palate surgery with small or absent tonsils: new research and a key to good results
Readers of this blog should be familiar with my sleep surgery philosophy: individual patients require an individualized approach to selecting procedures and identifying factors that will be associated with results. Among the predictors of outcomes for palate surgery that have been identified, one of the most important is tonsil size. Because patients who undergo palate… Read more »
Advances in Sleep Apnea and Snoring Course–Day 3
Today’s lectures focused on patient evaluation and treatment with surgery and oral appliances. Dr. Peter Cistulli from the University of Sydney discussed findings from the MASPAP randomized trial conducted in Australia that has recently been accepted for publication in a medical journal. This study compared mandibular advancement splints (also known as oral appliances) against continuous… Read more »
Choosing the Best Palate Surgery for Snoring & Sleep Apnea
Note: our 19th Annual Advances in Diagnosis and Treatment of Sleep Apnea and Snoring course will be held on February 15-17, 2013, in Orlando, Florida. It is the largest course dedicated to snoring and obstructive sleep apnea, and it combines medical and surgical evaluation and treatment in an unique format. Please do not hesitate to… Read more »
Lateral Pharyngoplasty–Version 4, Direct from Brazil
Every July for the past six years, I have been fortunate to travel to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to give lectures at the International Symposium on Snoring and Sleep Apnea at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein. The course is held at one of the top hospitals in Brazil and is organized by excellent, thoughtful surgeons: Drs…. Read more »
Modified Expansion Sphincter Pharyngoplasty–A True International Effort
At the Tenth World Congress of Sleep Apnea last week in Rome, I had the opportunity to spend time with colleagues from around the world, including two groups of Italian surgeons who have developed modifications to the expansion sphincter pharyngoplasty procedure (incorporated in my explanation of the procedure on my website). This expanded on presentations… Read more »
“The Surgery” for Sleep Apnea
I often hear people refer to someone they know—or themselves—as having “the surgery for sleep apnea”, following it up with the assessment about whether “it worked” or not. Whenever this occurs, I take a deep breath before starting in on the explanation below. My website hopefully makes it clear that there are many procedures available… Read more »