Injection snoreplasty: a new modality in treatment of palatal snoring

Snoring continues to be a wide spread problem that affect many people and their bed partners. Snoring treatment continues to evolve to meet this demad with the emphasis on developing simpler, less invasive procedures that will minimally disrupts the patient's daily life. Surgical treatment of snoring is varied and controversial like uvulopalatopharyngoplasty [UPPP], laser assisted uvuloplasty [LAUP], cautery assisted palatal stiffening operation [CAPSO] and radiofrequency ablation [RFA] but no one procedure is widely accepted as the best procedure. Injection snoroplasty is a new procedure introduced for treatment of primary snoring. It is a simple, safe, effective, low cost and minimally invasive method with minimal complications. Fifteen patients were enrolled in this study complaining of primary snoring with respiratory disturbance index less than 10. They were collected from Al-Azhar university hospitals from July 2002 to July 2003. Preoperative assessment of the patients was done and then injection snoreplasty procedure by injecting the soft palate by sclerosing material [scleremo] to induce stiffness of the soft palate was used. Then follow up for one week was done. The overall results were 80% success. Postoperative assessment was done subjectively and objectively after 2 months. Minimal postoperative complications were noticed in the form of palatal swelling, pain, discomfort and superficial palatal mucosal breakdown which healed spontaneously with minimal treatment