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 »

A few days before Thanksgiving, my oldest brother Peter suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.  Peter was amazing, setting an example for me and so many others.  We all dearly miss him.  This is a cruel reminder of how important it is to spend time with those close to us and make sure they know how… Read more »

Successful surgical treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea depends on accurately finding the areas in the nose and throat that are responsible for these problems, so that it is possible to select from among the many surgical options.  Because patients are different, a personalized approach is required, and I have written about this in… Read more »

Sleep Surgery Includes Palate Region and Tongue Region Procedures Sleep surgery is the surgical treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.  For many years, there was only one procedure (called uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, or UPPP) to treat these problems.  Although UPPP clearly helps many patients, it has some important limitations that I have discussed in a previous… Read more »

At the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Annual Meeting last week in Washington, DC, Alan Pack, MBChB, PhD delivered the Neel Distinguished Research Lecture on the topic “Towards Personalized Sleep Apnea Surgery”.  This honor is reserved for those with major contributions to science in disorders of the head and neck, and Dr. Pack… Read more »

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 »

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 »

I just returned from Sao Paulo to give lectures at the 6th International Symposium on Snoring and Sleep Apnea at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein.  Surprisingly, the organizing team keeps asking me to return and are not sick of hearing from me yet.  Brazil is home to some of the leading sleep surgeons and sleep… Read more »

There is an impressive—and disturbing—amount of misunderstanding and misinformation available on the Internet, medical journals, and elsewhere about the surgical treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea.  This is even more concerning because it comes from many who claim to be experts in the treatment of these disorders.  Surgery is a viable treatment option for… Read more »