Evaluating the Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Neonates and Infants

Objectives To investigate interventions used in treating obstructive sleep apnea in neonates and infants and to report their efficacies. Design Retrospective medical record review. Setting Tertiary care children's hospital. Patients Neonates and infants aged 0 to 12 months at the time of obstructive sleep apnea diagnosis by polysomnography. Main Outcome Measures Demographic data, comorbidities, polysomnography data, and intervention data. Results In total, 126 patients (86 [68.3%] male and 40 [31.7%] female) were included in the study. The most common interventions (and the mean age at the time of intervention) were anti–gastroesophageal reflux disease treatment (88 patients [69.8%] at age 7 months), observation (33 patients [26.2%] at age 6 months), supplemental oxygen (31 patients [24.6%] at age 4 months), adenoidectomy (30 patients [23.8%] at age 15 months), other surgical (25 patients [19.8%] at age 7 months), continuous positive airway pressure/bilevel positive airway pressure (CPAP/BiPAP) (18 patients [14.3%] at age 16 months), supraglottoplasty (11 patients [8.7%] at age 6 months), tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (9 patients [7.1%] at age 24 months), tracheostomy (7 patients [5.6%] at age 10 months), and other nonsurgical (7 patients [5.6%] at age 15 months). Among neonates and infants, nonsurgical interventions were performed in most cases, although those aged 0 to 3 months underwent more surgical interventions (19.7%) than those aged older than 3 to 9 months (11.7%). The mean objective improvement, measured as a percentage decrease in preintervention to postintervention apnea-hypopnea index, was greatest in neonates and infants receiving CPAP/BiPAP, followed by those undergoing tracheostomy. Conclusions Anti–gastroesophageal reflux disease treatment is the most common intervention in each age group. Although adenoidectomy is the most common surgical intervention overall, the prevalence increases with age. Supraglottoplasty is the most common surgical intervention in neonates and infants aged 0 to 3 months and offers the greatest objective improvement in this age group. Overall, the use of CPAP/BiPAP is associated with the greatest objective improvement.