Hereditary angioedema is characterised by recurrent episodes of peri-orbital and peri-oral swelling which can cause an upper airway obstruction, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, and even hypotensive collapse. This potentially fatal condition is frequently misdiagnosed; its early recognition and appropriate treatment are thus important. We report a familial cluster of hereditary angioedema i...

Snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) both exhibit multilevel upper airway obstruction. The Importance of evaluating the dynamics of the obstructing upper airway cannot be emphasised enough. Accurate assessment and evaluation of the upper airway could potentially lead to improved surgical and non-surgical treatment outcomes. Most of these patients would have undergone an ambulatory sleep s...

A burgeoning new arena in healthcare has opened to dental professionals with the potential to relieve the suffering of millions of people worldwide. Qualified dentists are increasingly being called upon to interface with the medical profession in an effort to manage the unstable upper airway during sleep. What has come to be called "oral appliance therapy" (OAT) involves the coordinated efforts...

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is causally associated with benign and malignant diseases of the upper airway, including respiratory papillomatosis and oropharyngeal cancer. Low-risk HPV types 6 and 11 are the predominant cause of papillomatosis, whereas only HPV16 definitively satisfies both molecular and epidemiological causal criteria as a carcinogenic or high-risk type in the upper air...

The pathophysiology of obstructive sleep apnea can be explained by collapse of upper airways secondary to the negative intra-pharyngeal pressure that develops during inspiration [4]. In addition, during sleep, muscles in the mouth relax and tongue and other structures tend to fall toward the back of the mouth causing crowding in the upper airway region with more potential for upper airway obstr...

This article has reviewed the anatomic, compliance, reflex, and respiratory muscle variables that affect upper airway caliber and abnormalities which may precipitate upper airway collapse during sleep. One or more of these variables may be important in the mechanism of OSA in any given patient. First, anyone with anatomic narrowing of the upper airway is susceptible to OSA. However, we do know ...

The intrinsic tongue muscle, genioglossus, and soft palatal muscles, tensor palatini, levator palatini and palatoglossus, are known to exhibit phasic respiratory activity and to respond reflexly to negative pressure in man, which may be important in the maintenance of upper airway patency. We hypothesized that the palatopharyngeus muscle should also have respiratory activity and increased activ...

Upper airway pressure was measured during maximal exercise in 10 Thoroughbred racehorses with naturally occurring upper airway obstruction. Left laryngeal hemiplegia and arytenoid chondropathy resulted in substantial increases (30-40 cm H2O) in inspiratory upper airway pressure (Pl), whereas complicated aryepiglottic entrapment and subepiglottic cysts produced only modest increases (15 cm H2O) ...

conclusions pharyngeal airway dimensions, soft palate length, thickness, and position, and hyoid position are not significantly different between skeletal class i and class ii prepubertal children. results no significant difference in the upper airway, soft palate, and hyoid variables was found between the two groups (p > 0.05) and no correlation was found between anb difference and the other v...