Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is a common condition in which the throat narrows or collapses repeatedly during sleep, causing breathing to momentarily stop.

Patients with sleep apnea are usually treated with special pressure masks to help them breathe at night. If this fails, surgery is often recommended, but unfortunately not all patients respond well to surgery.

Professor Simon Carney has received a Flinders Foundation Health Seed Grant to try and identify early in a patient’s treatment journey which method – pressure masks or surgery – will be more beneficial.

“By using straightforward techniques such as the analysis of snoring soundwaves and measuring how ‘floppy’ a patient’s throat is, we hope to be able to identify who will do well from which treatment option for their snoring and sleep apnea,” Prof Carney said.

“Many patients can't use breathing masks at night due to claustrophobia or other reasons. Surgery sounds like a good alternative, but some patients expected to do well actually gain little benefit.

“We want to be able to pick these individuals before they undergo potentially painful surgery.”

Research category: Clinical

Project title: “Pheno-DISE”: improving Drug Induced Sleep Endoscopy using novel acoustic and phenotyping techniques

Lead researcher: Professor Simon Carney