Dr. Kezirian’s Blog

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 »

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea often snore, but there is a large group of patients who snore but have no obstructive sleep apnea.  The prevailing wisdom is that snoring without obstructive sleep apnea is not harmful, other than waking up others (and maybe the snorer, whether from sharp elbows coming from those sharing their bed… Read more »

Disclosure: I have served on the Medical Advisory Board and as a consultant for Apnex Medical, a medical device company that developed the Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation System to treat obstructive sleep apnea.  At no point did I own any portion of the company, although they did pay for my time devoted to company work, initially… Read more »

Sleep apnea research, including studies of sleep surgery, is moving forward around the world.  On May 4-5, I will be the keynote speaker for the 94th Taiwan Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Congress in Tainan, Taiwan.  I look forward to continued discussions with colleagues there about many topics, including the current knowledge of any racial and… Read more »

If you snore or know someone who does, there is a wide range of treatment options that can help.  My practice is dedicted to the surgical evaluation and treatment of snoring and obstructive sleep apnea, and anyone should feel free to contact me via e-mail or finding more information about seeing me as a patient… Read more »

There are many things that we do not understand about obstructive sleep apnea.  This is particularly true for women and men at least 60 years of age, where approximately 20-40% are in the moderate to severe sleep apnea range.  Although sleep apnea is very common among older adults (note: age is just a number, but… 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 »