Clinical Efficacy of Symptomatic Manifestations in Prediction of Pediatric Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Abstract

Background and Objective This study was aimed to identify clinical efficacy of subjective symptoms in prediction of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children. Methods Medical records of children under age of 12 years who underwent attended full night polysomnography were reviewed. Questionnaires in the Korean version of OSA-18 were answered by all of the patients. Among the questionnaires, the scores of snoring, apnea and mouth breathing were summated to analyze the correlation between subjective symptoms and apnea hypopnea index (AHI). The hypertrophy of the tonsils and adenoids were graded from 1 to 4. Results A total of 68 patients (45 males and 23 females) were included in this study. The average age of patients was 6.9 years. The average score of snoring, apnea and mouth breathing was 5.1, 3.7 and 5.1, respectively. The average grade of tonsil and adenoid hypertrophy was 2.9 and 2.5, respectively. While the Korean version of OSA-18 score and AHI did not show a significant correlation (p = 0.222), the sum of snoring, apnea and mouth breathing score showed a significant correlation with AHI (p = 0.019). A composite score including snoring, apnea, mouth breathing, and adenotonsillar hypertrophy was also correlated with AHI (p = 0.035). However, adenotonsillar hypertrophy was not correlated with AHI. Conclusions The present study showed that OSA in children was better predicted by subjective symptoms, in particular, snoring, apnea and mouth breathing than adenotonsillar hypertrophy.

Keywords

• Tonsil
• Adenoid
• Snoring
• Obstructive sleep apnea
• Pediatric