Weight an Issue in Return of Sleep-Disordered Breathing

MONDAY, March 17 (HealthDay News) -- Obese children and those with an accelerated body mass index gain are more likely to have recurrence of sleep-disordered breathing after adenotonsillectomy, according to research published in the March 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Raouf Amin, M.D., of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, and colleagues analyzed data from 40 children with enlarged tonsils and sleep-disordered breathing treated with adenotonsillectomy, and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy controls without any history of obstructed breathing during sleep.

Body mass index, African-American race and gain velocity in body mass index all predicted the risk of recurrence of sleep-disordered breathing, the researchers report. In the group with recurrence of the problem, systolic blood pressure was higher a year after baseline, and was also higher than in children without recurrence.

"The high rate of recurrence of sleep-disordered breathing that we observed one year after surgery in both obese and non-obese children indicates that sleep-disordered breathing is a chronic condition. In fact, the absence of a significant correlation between the six-week postoperative apnea-hypopnea index and apnea-hypopnea index measured at any earlier or later time speaks to the limited predictive value of the six-week evaluation," the authors write. "In view of our findings, it would be clinically prudent to extend the traditional six-week follow-up, commonly used in clinical practice, to at least a one-year follow-up," the authors write.

Several co-authors have financial relationships with companies with an interest in the subject of this study.

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