2008 Woodie Awards
Experiment could revolutionize sleep apnea treatment
Milwaukee ear, nose and throat specialist ready to head national study of condition
Issue date: 10/8/07 Section: Nation & World News
MILWAUKEE (MCT) - It's midnight and foggy, not unlike the way Brad Hays will feel when he gets out of bed in the morning. Hays, 55, is doing what he has done every night for more than a decade: prodigiously snoring, an activity that occasionally pauses with a momentary interruption of breathing.
"Often I have dreams of a situation where I'm suffocating," Hays said. "I wake up sometimes gasping for air."
As someone with moderate to severe sleep apnea, Hays' dream is a daily reality as he is starved of air more than 100 times a night.
These episodes of snoring, airway closing and interrupted sleep have driven Hays to sign up for an experimental surgery in which a small device would be implanted under his chin.
It's a novel approach that raises a big question: Will it revolutionize treatment of a condition that affects an estimated 12 million Americans?
As part of a national study that is headed up by a Milwaukee ear, nose and throat specialist, Hays is one of only a handful of people in the country to be implanted with the device.
"We need surgeries with fewer side effects that can be done under local anesthesia," said B. Tucker Woodson, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and principal investigator of the U.S. clinical trial of the device.
Although the clinical trial requires the device be implanted while the patients are under general anesthesia, Woodson said once the device is approved, the operation can be done with local anesthesia.
Woodson is a consultant to Aspire Medical, the company that makes the device and is funding the trial.
Michael Friedman, director of sleep surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said a big advantage to the device is that it is adjustable. To get the airway open more, the device can be progressively adjusted in later office visits. He said he doubted that it will be "a magic cure-all."
Still, because so many people with sleep apnea go untreated, partly because of the invasiveness of other surgeries or their inability to tolerate the non-surgical approach of using air pressure masks that fit over the nose, the device could be attractive to many people with untreated apnea.
"Often I have dreams of a situation where I'm suffocating," Hays said. "I wake up sometimes gasping for air."
As someone with moderate to severe sleep apnea, Hays' dream is a daily reality as he is starved of air more than 100 times a night.
These episodes of snoring, airway closing and interrupted sleep have driven Hays to sign up for an experimental surgery in which a small device would be implanted under his chin.
It's a novel approach that raises a big question: Will it revolutionize treatment of a condition that affects an estimated 12 million Americans?
As part of a national study that is headed up by a Milwaukee ear, nose and throat specialist, Hays is one of only a handful of people in the country to be implanted with the device.
"We need surgeries with fewer side effects that can be done under local anesthesia," said B. Tucker Woodson, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin and principal investigator of the U.S. clinical trial of the device.
Although the clinical trial requires the device be implanted while the patients are under general anesthesia, Woodson said once the device is approved, the operation can be done with local anesthesia.
Woodson is a consultant to Aspire Medical, the company that makes the device and is funding the trial.
Michael Friedman, director of sleep surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said a big advantage to the device is that it is adjustable. To get the airway open more, the device can be progressively adjusted in later office visits. He said he doubted that it will be "a magic cure-all."
Still, because so many people with sleep apnea go untreated, partly because of the invasiveness of other surgeries or their inability to tolerate the non-surgical approach of using air pressure masks that fit over the nose, the device could be attractive to many people with untreated apnea.
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