Objectives:
To study the epidemiology of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in adolescents, which has received little attention.
Methods:
The Penn State Child Cohort (PSCC) is a representative general population sample of 700 children aged 5-12 years. Our preliminary results are based on an average 8 year follow up of the initial 300 prospective subjects (~43%) from this ongoing cohort study. A logistic regression was used to assess the association between potential risk factors and incident SDB.
Results:
The mean age at the 8-year follow up examination was 17.2 ± 0.1 years, with an average BMI percentile of 66.6 ± 1.6 and 56.5% boys. At baseline 1.5% of this subsample had SDB, defined by Apnea Hypopnia Index (AHI > 5 /hour). Surprisingly, there was
no persistence
of SDB. Eight-year incident SDB was 10.5%. The average AHI in those with incident SDB was 12.7 with a maximum of 92.4. Incident SDB was similar for girls (7.8%) and boys (12.7%). Those with SDB were older than those without (18.7 vs 17.0 years, P<0.001) and girls with SDB were older than boys with SDB (20.0 vs 18.0 years, P=0.002). Those with incident SDB tended to have a greater change in BMI percentile (8.2 vs 1.8, P = 0.143) during the follow up and slightly higher minority representation (25.8% vs 21.9%, P=0.655). A logistic regression model identified three variables that were associated with incident SDB, controlling for baseline AHI: age (OR = 1.5 (1.3, 1.9) P<0.001), male (OR= 2.5 (1.11,10.00) P=0.021), and [[Unable to Display Character: ∆]]BMIPCT (OR=1.2(1.02, 1.5) P=0.032).
Conclusion:
In this population based sample of adolescents, the 8-year incidence of SDB was high (10.5%), whereas childhood SDB did not persist into adolescence. Further, the results indicate that risk factors for incident SDB in adolescents are age, male and the development of obesity.
Sleep Disordered Breathing in Children in a General Population Sample: Prevalence and Risk Factors
