Soroush Zaghi, MD

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Soroush Zaghi, MD Highly specialized treatment of nasal obstruction, chronic mouth breathing, snoring, and obstructive

Dr. Zaghi graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed a 5-year residency training in Head and Neck Surgery at UCLA. He completed Sleep Surgery Fellowship as Clinical Instructor of Otolaryngology at Stanford University. The focus of his specialty training is on Sleep Endoscopy, CPAP Optimization, Frenuloplasty, Myofunctional Therapy, and Maxillofacial Airway Reconstruction for the treatment of nasal obstruction, snoring, and obstructive sleep apnea. He is very active in clinical research relating to sleep disordered breathing with over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles relating to neuroscience, head and neck surgery, and obstructive sleep apnea. Research interests include: Study design, literature review, and statistical analysis. Special interest in collaborative and multidisciplinary research projects relating to airway and breathing disorders, obstructive sleep apnea, nasal obstruction, catathrenia, myofunctional therapy, rapid maxillary expansion, maxillary mandibular advancment, facial and airway reconstruction. Clinical interests: Airway and Breathing Disorders, Snoring, Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Nasal Obstruction, Maxillary Expansion, Maxillary-Mandibular Advancement, Facial and Airway Reconstruction Surgery, Hypoglossal Nerve Stimulation, Functional Septorhinoplasty, Turbinate Reduction, Frenuloplasty, Sinus Surgery, and Aesthetic Jaw Surgery (Genioplasty).

07/31/2026

Here’s why I use both endoscopy and CBCT for a comprehensive airway evaluation.

This case highlights an important principle: the airway is dynamic, but anatomy is constant.

During endoscopy, the appearance of the tonsils changed from image to image depending on the camera angle, breathing, and soft tissue movement. On the CBCT, however, the tonsil volume remained clearly visible in a single standardized snapshot, revealing how much space the tonsils actually occupy.

That doesn’t mean CBCT tells the whole story.

Airway size can absolutely change with head and neck position, tongue posture, breathing, swallowing, and muscle tone. In fact, our research has shown that head and neck extension alone can significantly alter airway dimensions, which is why proper imaging technique is so important.

Our validated CBCT protocol includes:
• Lips closed
• Teeth together
• Head in a neutral position
• Horizontal visual gaze
• Swallow once
• Let the tongue rest where it naturally goes

When performed and interpreted correctly, CBCT provides a reproducible view of the entire airway and surrounding anatomy. It is not a replacement for a clinical examination or endoscopy—it’s a complementary tool that helps us understand the full picture.

The best treatment decisions come from combining dynamic functional evaluation with high-quality anatomical imaging—not relying on either one alone.

I’m Dr. Soroush Zaghi—your go-to expert for sleep, breathing, and airway health. Follow for solutions that help you breathe better, sleep deeper, and feel your best through precision, patient-centered airway care.

07/28/2026

“Everything looks normal.”
“Let’s try another nasal spray.”

Imagine hearing that again and again when, as a parent, you know your child has never been able to breathe through one side of his nose.

That was this family’s experience.

His mom knew something was wrong from the day he was born. One side of his nose just didn’t seem to work. She kept asking questions and wondering if something was physically blocking it.

She was right.

This child was born with a completely blocked nasal passage on one side—a congenital condition called unilateral choanal atresia.

In choanal atresia, the opening at the back of the nose fails to develop normally before birth and is blocked by bone and/or soft tissue. In this case, air simply could not pass through that side of his nose.

But because only one side was blocked, the other side worked normally. He could still breathe, compensate, and get by—making the problem much easier to miss. His symptoms were attributed to much more common problems like congestion and allergies.

But his family knew something wasn’t right. Nothing was helping, and he still couldn’t breathe through one side of his nose.

So they came to see me for a comprehensive airway evaluation.

Families aren’t just looking for common answers—they’re looking for the right answer.

That’s why I use low-dose CBCT imaging as part of my airway evaluations. It allows me to see the anatomy in detail and immediately correlate what I see on the scan with the child’s story and my physical examination.

Together, this allows me to make treatment recommendations based on a precise diagnosis.

In this case, the anatomy was clear: one side of his nasal airway had been blocked since birth.

The treatment is a procedure performed through the nose to open the blocked passage and restore airflow—giving him the opportunity to fully breathe through a side of his nose that has never been open.

Listen to parents.

Sometimes the answer isn’t another nasal spray.

**It’s finally getting to the RIGHT diagnosis. **

I’m Dr. Soroush Zaghi—your go-to expert for sleep, breathing, and airway health.

07/09/2026

👃 Do nasal strips help you breathe better? They may be telling you something important.

Many people assume their nasal congestion is caused by allergies or a deviated septum. But for some, the real issue is nasal valve obstruction—a narrowing or collapse of the narrowest part of the nasal airway.

One simple way to screen for this at home is with an external nasal dilator, such as an Intake nasal strip. If you notice a significant improvement in your breathing while wearing it, that may suggest your nasal valve is contributing to your symptoms.

These strips can be a great non-surgical option for many people, especially if you’re not ready for a procedure.

But if you love the way they help you breathe and wish you could get that same feeling all the time, it may be worth having your nasal airway evaluated. There are now minimally invasive options that can improve nasal valve function without traditional nasal surgery, and the best treatment depends on your specific anatomy.

The goal isn’t just to treat symptoms—it’s to understand why you’re having trouble breathing in the first place.

I’m Dr. Soroush Zaghi—your go-to expert for sleep, breathing, and airway health. Follow for solutions to help you breathe better, sleep deeper, and feel your best—with a natural-minded, functional, and holistic approach.

06/30/2026

FREQUENT NOSEBLEEDS? 👃🩸

Few things are more alarming for parents than seeing their child with a nosebleed that won’t stop.

In this case, we helped control an active nosebleed and then focused on the bigger question: Why is it happening in the first place?

Many recurrent nosebleeds are caused by:
• Dry nasal tissues
• Nose picking or rubbing
• Allergies and inflammation
• Prominent blood vessels near the front of the septum
• Chronic mouth breathing

During an active nosebleed:
✅ Lean forward
✅ Pinch the soft part of the nose firmly
✅ Hold continuous pressure for 10–15 minutes

To help prevent future nosebleeds:
✔️ Keep the nose moisturized with saline spray or gel
✔️ Use a humidifier when the air is dry
✔️ Treat underlying allergies
✔️ Avoid excessive nose picking or rubbing
✔️ Address chronic mouth breathing and nasal obstruction

When nosebleeds become frequent, severe, or disruptive, treatments such as silver nitrate cautery can help seal problematic blood vessels and reduce recurrence.

A nosebleed is often more than just a nosebleed—it can be a sign that the nasal airway needs attention.

I’m Dr. Soroush Zaghi—your go-to expert for sleep, breathing, and airway health. Follow for solutions to help you breathe better, sleep deeper, and feel your best—with a natural-minded, functional, and holistic approach!

NasalBreathing

06/30/2026

UARS vs OSA: The Big Bad Wolf of Airway Obstruction 🐺🏡

Patients often ask me:

“How is it that my UARS feels so much worse than someone else’s severe sleep apnea, even though my sleep study looks less severe?”

Imagine you’re asleep in your house, and the Big Bad Wolf is outside.

With severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), the wolf gets into the garden and even into the house. He makes a mess all night long. You may not keep waking up, but your body experiences repeated oxygen fluctuations, physiologic stress, and long-term health consequences.

In OSA, the upper airway obstruction takes a toll on your body.

With upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS), the wolf never gets into the garden. He never gets into the house. Every time he gets close to the fence, scratches the gate, or touches the door… you wake up.

The house looks fine. The garden looks fine.

But you never really slept.

In UARS, your brain is on high alert. It has a heightened arousal response that stands guard all night. As you move from light sleep into deeper, more restorative sleep, your muscles naturally relax. Your airway begins to narrow. Breathing can start to feel more difficult. Your brain senses this increased resistance and arouses you to wake. The Big Bad Wolf never gets into the garden or the house because your brain keeps him at bay. But all that standing guard repeatedly interrupts restorative sleep. You wake up feeling unrefreshed and exhausted by morning.

The wolf is your upper airway obstruction.

The way your brain and body respond to the wolf helps determine how you feel, your symptoms, and the condition that develops.

Patients with UARS are often hyper-arousable. They wake up before the obstruction can cause more significant downstream effects on the body.

Patients with OSA do not wake up as readily. They are more vulnerable to the harmful downstream effects of repeated airway obstruction and intermittent hypoxemia.

Airway obstruction. Different response. Different consequences. Different experience. UARS vs. OSA.

AirwayHealth SleepHealth

06/24/2026

Radiation exposure on an airplane flight ✈️

This is a timely repost of an experiment that puts radiation levels into context.

I took a 4-hour flight from Los Angeles to Chicago with a radiation dosimeter to measure how much radiation we’re exposed to while flying. From takeoff to landing, I tracked changes in radiation dose as we climbed higher and cruised at altitude.

After four hours, I compared the total radiation collected to what you would receive from a standard X-ray or a low-dose CBCT scan.

The goal was to provide a clear, evidence-based look at background radiation exposure during everyday life compared with high-altitude air travel and low-dose medical and dental imaging.

Many people are surprised to learn that altitude plays a significant role in radiation exposure due to reduced atmospheric shielding. Understanding these exposures can help put medical and dental imaging doses into perspective.

Dosimeter

06/24/2026

The radiation dose you’re exposed to in medical or dental imaging varies greatly depending on the type and setting of the scanner.

I previously ran an experiment with a radiation dosimeter inside our CBCT scanner (which is set at the lowest setting), and the results were eye-opening. Only a minimal amount of radiation was detected. However, the same CBCT scanner can emit much higher doses depending on the settings applied.

For perspective, based on a research article published in Imaging Science in Dentistry by Gang Li in 2013:

• A single intraoral X-ray is about 1.5 µSv
• Panoramic dental X-rays are roughly 22 µSv
• Dental CBCT scans range from 61 to 134 µSv
• Medical-grade high-dose CT/CBCT scans, such as those for the brain or abdomen, can significantly exceed these figures, often reaching several hundred microsieverts or even millisieverts depending on the specific application and settings.

Understanding these specific ranges across both dental and medical imaging underscores the importance of precise application. The goal is to use only as much exposure as required to obtain a clear diagnostic image while minimizing unnecessary radiation exposure for patient safety.

  

06/24/2026

One of the biggest criticisms of CBCT imaging is radiation exposure.

But here’s the problem with that argument: it often assumes that all CBCT scans deliver the same amount of radiation.

They don’t.

The amount of radiation depends on the machine, the field of view, the settings, and the protocol being used.

Think about it like a camera flash.

A smartphone flash and a professional studio flash are both flashes, but they don’t produce the same amount of light. The amount of energy being delivered is dramatically different.

The same principle applies to CT imaging.

Not all CT scans are the same. Not all CBCT scans are the same.

In our clinic, we use low-dose protocols specifically designed for pediatric airway screening. Those settings are very different from the protocols used to evaluate dental pathology, bony lesions, sinus navigation, temporal bone imaging, or conventional medical CT scans.

In fact, published studies have shown that CBCT radiation exposure can be substantially lower than conventional medical-grade CT imaging. Other studies have demonstrated that simply changing the field of view and exposure settings can significantly reduce radiation dose while still providing clinically useful information.

But perhaps the most important point is this:

Rather than assume, measure.

That’s why we worked directly with a medical physicist to evaluate the actual radiation exposure from our protocols. That’s also why our office purchased a radiation dosimeter—to measure the actual output of our equipment rather than relying solely on generalized estimates.

Reading matters. Staying up to date matters. Guidelines matter.

But observation matters. Verification matters. Measurement matters.

Technology evolves. Protocols evolve. New data emerge.

If we’re going to have a meaningful discussion about radiation, let’s base that discussion on measurements rather than assumptions.

The next two videos are going to show you exactly that.

Not all CBCT scans are the same. the protocol matters.

CraniofacialDevelopment

06/23/2026

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the role of CBCT imaging in pediatric airway evaluations, and the questions being raised deserve thoughtful discussion.

One of the most common criticisms is that CBCT provides only a static image, while breathing, sleep, posture, and airway function are dynamic processes. That’s true. But the fact that something is dynamic doesn’t make a single measurement meaningless.

Blood pressure changes throughout the day. Heart rate changes from minute to minute. Weight fluctuates from one day to the next. Yet we still measure all of them because a single snapshot can provide valuable information when interpreted in the proper clinical context.

The same principle applies to CBCT imaging.

While breathing and sleep are dynamic processes, they occur within a structural framework. Understanding anatomy doesn’t explain everything, but it often explains far more than we appreciate.

The goal is not to obtain more images. The goal is to better understand why a child is struggling to breathe, sleep, grow, or develop properly.

Radiation exposure is another important consideration. CBCT is not a single radiation dose. Exposure varies significantly depending on the machine, field of view, settings, and protocol being used. Not all CBCT scans are the same.

This is an important conversation, and it’s one worth having with measurements rather than assumptions.

This is Part 1. In the next videos, I’ll review the evidence, discuss radiation in greater detail, and share real patient examples that illustrate both the strengths and limitations of CBCT imaging in pediatric airway care.

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10921 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 912
Los Angeles, CA
90024

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Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
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