The ABCs of childhood z's: Snoring may be chronic despi...( Children who gain weight rapidly aft...),Health

Children who gain weight rapidly after having their tonsils and adenoids removed to treat sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) may improve in the short-term, but over time they may relapse or even worsen. African-American children also tend to relapse, according to new research from Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center.

Adenotonsillectomy is the most commonly performed surgery in children, ranging from about 19 per 10,000 in Canada to 115 per 10,000 in the Netherlands. In the U.S., the rate is about 50 per 10,000. It is the first line of treatment for SDB in children. For many kids, undergoing this major surgery provides only temporary relief.

The high rate of recurrence we observed in both obese and non-obese children indicates that SDB is a chronic condition, said Raouf Amin, M.D., director of pulmonary medicine at the hospital.

The results were published in the second issue for March of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.

The researchers recruited 40 healthy children between seven and 13 whose parents and otolaryngologists had jointly agreed upon adenotonsillectomy surgery to treat nightly snoring. The investigators also recruited 30 sex- and age-matched children who were not undergoing adenotonsillectomy as a control group. They performed polysomnographies on each child at time of recruitment, and again at six weeks, six months, and a year following surgery. Children in the control group had polysomnographies at the same intervals.

While the majority of children with SDB showed significant improvement in their AHI scores six weeks after surgery, the rate of relapse one year later had no correlation with the six-week score. Children who relapsed were more likely to be more obese, have worse SDB at baseline, have an accelerated body mass index (BMI) gain, and to be African-American.

Most post-adenotonsillectomy outcome studies
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