Obstructive Sleep Apnea Case Study

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by partial or complete cessation of airflow and oxygen desaturation during sleep owing to upper airway collapse.1,2 The severity of sleep apnea depends on the abnormal size of the airway.3 In children, the major contributor to airway narrowing is hyperplasia of pharyngeal tonsils and adenoids.4 Moreover, pediatric craniofacial disharmony was strongly associated with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). 5

Polysomnography is indicated when the clinical assessment suggests the diagnosis of childhood obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), also in asthma if there is a clinical suspicion for an accompanying SDB disorder.6

Children with asthma had a significantly higher risk for SDB. Therefore, few authors

The device was applied between 6:00 pm and 8:00 am and recorded data continuously throughout the night. During the test, all the children underwent recordings for ≥6 h in a quiet, appropriately prepared sleep room in the presence of one of their caretakers. 13 The TST has calculated accordingly to the childhood falling asleep and waking reported in a diary by the caretaker and compared to the changes of body position and HR recorded by the machine. The nocturnal awakenings were considered from the TST computation and removed from the final

Obstructive respiratory events were scored as previously reported.14 In particular, the number of obstructive apneas (OA; n/h) plus hypopneas (H; n/h) was divided by the hours of TST and expressed as an obstructive apnea-hypopnea index (OAHI, n/h).15 Severe sleep respiratory condition was set at OAHI ≥ n. 10/h. We chose to evaluate central apnea index (CAI) calculating all central respiratory events recorded per hour of sleep (n/h TST), as previously reported. 16

Desaturation was considered in the presence of a drop ≥ 3% oxygen (O2). All O2 desaturations (n/h) from the baseline, mean SaO2 (%) and minimum SaO2 (%) were quantified. The oxygen desaturation index (ODI, n/h) was calculated as the total number of oxygen desaturations divided by the TST. Snoring (% of TST) was