Sleep disordered breathing and ventilatory support in Down children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Sleep disordered breathing and ventilatory support in children with Down syndrome
IRAS ID
228465
Contact name
Hui-Leng Tan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Brompton Hospital
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
Children with Down syndrome (DS) often experienced obstructive sleep disordered breathing (SDB). Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is the most common of these disorders. Factors contributing to the upper airway obstruction, particularly during sleep, are midface and upper airway anatomical abnormalities along with a generalized hypotonia. Moreover, OSA can potentially have negative health effects, worsening the pulmonary hypertension and the behavioural and cognitive problems in DS children. Furthermore, it has been recently reported that DS children can also suffer from a mild nocturnal hypoventilation. The recommended treatments for mild OSA in DS children can benefit from intranasal steroids and leukotriene modifiers. Conversely, moderate to severe OSA are usually treated surgically by adenotonsillectomy (AT). The use of positive airway pressure (PAP), either applied as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or bilevel positive airway pressure (BiPAP) can potentially warrant the patency of the upper airway, however, in DS children, the adherence to the support is recognized to be an important issue.
The present study is firstly aimed to determine whether there is an association between comorbidities frequently present in DS children, namely the gastro-oesophageal reflux (GOR), pulmonary hypertension (PH), swallow impairment (SI), oxygen requirement within the first year of life (OR) and the severity of SDB detected by sleep studies. Secondly, this work investigates the outcomes of the respiratory interventions established, both in terms of effectiveness on SDB treatment, and in terms of DS children adherence.REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0348
Date of REC Opinion
14 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion