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 »

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 »

Readers of this blog and my website will be familiar with my interest in drug-induced sleep endoscopy as a surgical evaluation technique for patients with snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.  Two of the most common questions I receive when giving lectures around the world are: Does the sedation given to patients worsen their sleep apnea… Read more »

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 »

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 »

Note: This week, I move from the University of California, San Francisco to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.  I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and this change is solely for personal (non-work) reasons.  I look forward to joining the team at USC, where I will continue the combination of caring… Read more »

Later this month, I will return to Sao Paulo for the 7th International Symposium on Snoring and Sleep Apnea. It has been a true pleasure to join colleagues and share our experiences as well as the latest research.  Brazil is home to some of the world’s premier sleep researchers, including Dr. Geraldo Lorenzi-Filho (shown here… Read more »

As you can probably tell, I truly enjoy sharing ideas with colleagues and patients about some of the challenges we face in treating snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.  One topic that provokes particularly intense discussion is the role of the epiglottis in sleep apnea.  My colleague, Dr. Andrew Goldberg, came up with the title for… Read more »

This month’s issue of the medical journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery included an article written by Emmanuel Jauregui, one of our medical students at the University of California, San Francisco, that reported a case I treated with an unusual complication of hyoid suspension (sometimes called hyoid myotomy and suspension). Hyoid suspension is a procedure that… Read more »

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 »