[Sleep apnea syndrome, a "new" disease]

The sleep apnea syndrome recently has been discovered as a not infrequently occurring entity having a rank value in health politics because of its long range prognostic implications. Furthermore, the disease often causes significant worsening of life quality and working performance. The impressive sequelae can efficiently be treated according to published results. Future tasks will be amelioration of therapy, research of association between sleep apnea syndrome, snoring, and associate diseases as mentioned above. Furthermore, the high prevalence of the disease should lead to better evaluation of insurance related and medical opinion related problems of the disease.