Eric Kezirian
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a disorder in which the upper airway repeatedly closes during sleep. It is linked to heart disease, early death, daytime sleepiness and poorer quality of life.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
- Topics
obstructive sleep apnea
sleep medicine
drug-induced sleep endoscopy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Test whether tissue-repositioning soft palate surgery reduces upper airway collapsibility in people with obstructive sleep apnea, and whether the drop is larger when blockage is limited to the palate on drug-induced sleep endoscopy and airflow-shape analysis.
- Determine whether surgical success depends on traits measured before surgery: palate-only blockage, lower airway collapsibility, lower loop gain (more stable breathing control) and a higher arousal threshold, using algorithm-analyzed sleep studies.
- Test, in a randomized crossover trial of patients whose apnea persists after surgery, whether acetazolamide, which lowers loop gain, reduces apnea severity, and which postoperative traits predict response.
- Evaluate whether combining acetazolamide with eszopiclone, a sleep drug that raises the arousal threshold, reduces apnea severity further in surgery non-responders.
More about the research
Many patients cannot tolerate positive airway pressure, the standard treatment in which a machine blows air through a mask. Surgery is one alternative, but it often improves the condition without curing it. This project asks why surgery works for some patients and not others, and whether adding medications can help those it fails.
Why it matters
Obstructive sleep apnea raises the risk of heart disease and causes daytime sleepiness. Patients who cannot use a breathing machine have few good options. This study could help surgeons predict which patients will benefit from palate surgery. It could also show whether inexpensive medications, acetazolamide and eszopiclone, can treat apnea that remains after surgery. The result could be more personalized care for these patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Erin Kirkham
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Compare mean drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) airway obstruction scores in children randomized to sedation with propofol versus dexmedetomidine, testing whether propofol exaggerates airway collapse.
Devin L Brown
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine which obstructive sleep apnea endotypes, such as airway collapsibility, loop gain and arousal threshold, drive sleep apnea after stroke, and how they differ by ethnicity and from stroke-free participants, using polysomnography in the BASIC study.
Elwali Ahmed
Marian University, IN·Biomedical Engineering
Refine the wakefulness breathing-sound screening algorithm by reducing the influence of body measurements on classification and adding within-person variability, combining deterministic and non-deterministic machine learning models.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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