[Etiological treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea].

Research in the field of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) has been organized, and has profoundly transformed the quality of life of apneic patients, while even inviting dentofacial orthopedists to contribute to their symptomatic treatment. However, among the points still to be elucidated, the initial cause of the snoring that destabilizes the pharynx occupies a place apart. The objective of this article was to develop the proposal by Jacques Talmant regarding a mechanism capable of explaining the onset of OSA and for a therapy to treat pharyngeal destabilization during sleep.

[Physical aspects of morphogenesis].

During human morphogenesis, intrauterine liquid movements, whose amniotic fluid is at the first place, play an essential part with some unexpected consequences on the vestibular apparatus development and function. Underlying the ubiquitous container-content relation, they give a new and effective approach of the morphogenetic process.

[Fetal ventilation and craniomaxillary development].

Data acquired by means of color Doppler ultrasound very explicitly suggest what the role of the fetal ventilation and nasal capsules in the morphogenesis of the maxillary prognathism, turbinates, nasal valves and nasopharynx could be. Furthermore, the dysmorphologies observed in Apert or Crouzon craniosynostosis, achondroplasia or unilateral cleft lip would also testify that the influence of the fetal ventilatory dynamics goes beyond the limits of the face and extends to the cranial base and the cranium. The wealth of raised hypothesis thanks to the contribution of this imaging system could question the validity of some conceptions of the fetal craniomaxillary morphogenesis.