Is Treating Snoring Medical Malpractice?

In this short video on WebMD, the explicit discussion revolves around one man’s desire for a better night’s sleep, which will somehow be achieved by eliminating his snoring. The treatment he receives is polyester implants into the soft palate for the expressed purpose of stopping the vibrations of these tissues to reduce snoring. What’s the problem here? Actually a very serious one. At no point in the video do we learn whether the patient has been tested with an overnight sleep study (polysomnography) before the surgery or after to evaluate its effects. What would the sleep study show? In all likelihood, the patient has something far more medically significant than snoring; namely, sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), for example, obstructive sleep apnea or upper airway resistance syndrome. The standard of care in the field of sleep medicine requires the patient to undergo a sleep test before and after such treatments to determine to what extent the procedure has improved his condition. Many of these site-specific snoring surgeries provide scant relief of SDB. Some actually worsen SDB. We do not know the patient involved in this video and cannot comment on what he may or may not be suffering from. However, we can state categorically that patients who share some of his features, apparently a long history of snoring, a thick neck, dark circles under his eyes, and most importantly a recessed chin (often covered up by a beard or goatee) frequently test positive on a polysomnogram for obstructive sleep apnea or upper airway resistance syndrome. Was this patient informed of the need for testing before and after surgery? Did the patient receive a full explanation of the risks snoring carries for an SDB diagnosis. Was the patient evaluated by a sleep specialist for a possible SDB diagnosis? If not, then the standard of care established by the field of sleep disorders medicine was not met prior to the surgical intervention.