Blood count values and ratios for predicting sleep apnea in obese children

OBJECTIVES

To detect whether the mean platelet volume (MPV), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) are contributing factors in the diagnosis and severity of sleep apnea in obese children.

INTRODUCTION

Obesity is a public health problem, and its prevalence increases daily. Although PSG is the gold standard test in the investigation of sleep apnea, the application of this test requires equipment, personnel, time, and cost. There is no simple laboratory test for diagnosing and determining the severity of sleep apnea. Recently, MPV, NLR, and PLR, known as the inflammatory markers in CBC test parameters, have been investigated in some studies. We aim to investigate whether these parameters could provide a method for diagnosing and determining the severity of OSAS in obese children.

METHODS

Clinical records of 180 patients were evaluated. All subjects had venous blood samples collected from the antecubital vein in the morning, after an overnight fasting, one day before PSG. Hemoglobin, RDW, MPV, PLT, platelet distribution width (PDW), and WBC count were measured. After anthropometric and laboratory analysis, 127 obese children were assessed for sleep study. Eighty-three patients who met the required polysomnographic criteria were divided into three groups as follows: group A [non-OSAS, apnea-plus-hypopnea index (AHI) < 1], groupB (1 ≤ AHI < 5), and groupC (AHI ≥ 5).

RESULTS

Total recording time, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, REM, and NREM sleep stage latency values were not statistically significant among groups. However, the number of awakenings, AHI, oxygen desaturation events, mean oxygen saturation, lowest oxygen saturation, average desaturation, and snoring time values had significant difference among the groups. There was no statistically significant difference among the groups in terms of WBC, Hemoglobin, platelets, PDW, neutrophil, and lymphocyte values. However, RDW values showed a statistically significant difference between groups A and C. Although there was no statistically significant difference of MPV values among groups, NLR and PLR values were statistically significant between groups A and C.

CONCLUSION

According to our study, NLR, PLR, and RDW were found to be significantly higher in children whose AHI was ≥5 than in children from the other groups. However, no correlation was found between MPV levels and OSAS in children.

Assessment of Surgical Effects on Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is one of the most common sleep disorders. To treat patients with this health problem, it is important to detect the severity of this syndrome and occlusion sites in each patient. The goal of this study is to test the hypothesis that the cure of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome by maxillomandibular advancement surgery can be predicted by analyzing the effect of anatomical airway changes on the pressure effort required for normal breathing using a high-fidelity, 3-D numerical model. The employed numerical model consists of: 1) 3-D upper airway geometry construction from patient-specific computed tomographic scans using an image segmentation technique, 2) mixed-element mesh generation of the numerically constructed airway geometry for discretizing the domain of interest, and 3) computational fluid dynamics simulations for predicting the flow field within the airway and the degree of severity of breathing obstruction. In the present study, both laminar and turbulent flow simulations were performed to predict the flow field in the upper airway of the selected patients before and after maxillomandibular advancement surgery. Patients of different body mass indices were also studied to assess their effects. The numerical results were analyzed to evaluate the pressure gradient along the upper airway. The magnitude of the pressure gradient is regarded as the pressure effort required for breathing, and the extent of reduction of the pressure effort is taken to measure the success of the surgery. The description of the employed numerical model, numerical results from simulations of various patients, and suggestion for future work are detailed in this paper.