Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and growth failure.

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Sleep Medicine
• Endocrinology

Background:

• Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a recognized cause of significant medical morbidity in children.
• Since the 1980s, OSAS has been implicated as a risk factor for growth failure in pediatric populations.
• Growth failure associated with OSAS is often reversible upon resolution of the condition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze and compare growth failure prevalence in Mediterranean children with OSAS versus healthy controls.
• To assess the effectiveness of tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy in resolving growth retardation in children with OSAS.

Main Methods:

• A comparative study involving 172 children with OSAS (apnea-hypopnea index ≥ 3) who underwent tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy.
• Comparison with 172 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.
• Analysis of key anthropometric parameters including height-for-age and weight-for-age percentiles.

Main Results:

• Children with OSAS exhibited statistically significant higher prevalence of growth failure criteria compared to controls.
• Specific findings included higher rates of height-for-age ≤ 3rd percentile (7.56% vs 2.91%) and weight-for-age ≤ 5th percentile (9.30% vs 2.33%).
• One-year post-surgery follow-up showed catch-up growth in 66.6% of children with height-for-age ≤ 5th percentile and normalization in 58.33% with height and/or weight-for-age ≤ 5th percentile.

Conclusions:

• Physicians should consider OSAS as a potential cause of failure to thrive or growth failure in children.
• Tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy are effective interventions for resolving growth retardation in children with concurrent OSAS and growth failure.
• Surgical resolution of OSAS can lead to normalization of growth rates in affected pediatric patients.