Comparison of Positive Screening for Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Patients With and Without Cleft Lip and Palate

To compare the prevalence of increased risk of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children with and without cleft lip and/or palate using a previously validated questionnaire and to examine the clinical and demographic variables that may lead to increased OSA risk.

Prospective, cross-sectional study.

One hundred fifty-five cleft lip palate and 155 noncleft children between 2 and 18 years old.

The Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire (PSQ): Sleep Related Breathing Disorder Scale was used for screening of increased OSA risk. Age, body mass index (BMI), gender, breast-feeding, and bottle-feeding durations were recorded for all patients. Cleft type, lip and palate operation times, nasoalveolar molding, or nutrition plaque usage was documented for the cleft lip palate group. Pearson χ² or Fisher exact test was used for the evaluation of the qualitative variables and independent samples t test or Mann Whitney U test for quantitative variables. P < .05 was accepted as statistically significant.

The mean ages were 7.52 ± 3.91 and 7.50 ± 3.89 years for cleft lip palate and control groups, respectively. No significant differences were observed between the groups for age, gender, or BMI. Breast-feeding duration was significantly higher, and bottle-feeding duration was lower in the control group (P < .05). Mean PSQ score was significantly higher in cleft lip palate group (0.18 ± 0.12) than in control group (0.13 ± 0.1, P < .001); and prevalence of increased OSA risk was significantly higher in patients with both cleft lip and palate (P = .020).

Positive OSA screening ratio of children with cleft lip and palate (12.2%) was significantly higher than the controls (4.5%).