Surgery for Sleep Apnea?

Sleep apnea in children is caused by enlarged tonsils and adenoids, obesity and other medical problems. Does removing the tonsils and adenoids help children with sleep apnea? Is there a difference in the health of kids who wait, versus those who have their adenoids and tonsils removed right away?

Obstructive sleep apnea interrupts breathing because of a narrowed throat or upper airway. Causes include enlarged tonsils and adenoids, obesity or other medical problems.

Kids with sleep apnea are often monitored by doctors before there’s a surgical option offered. 464 children between the ages of 5 and 9 took part in the study…all randomly assigned for watchful waiting or surgery. Nearly half the children were overweight or obese.

Those who had the surgery showed improvements in behavior, sleepiness, quality of life and other symptoms… compared to those treated with watchful waiting. However, there was no difference between both groups in attention and other cognitive functions they were tested on.

African-American children, obese children and those with severe sleep apnea had smaller improvements after surgery than kids with milder cases.