Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea With Personalized Surgery in Children With Down Syndrome (TOPS-DS)

Plain-language summary

The overall objective of this randomized clinical trial is to test the effectiveness of a personalized approach to the surgical treatment of OSA in children with Down syndrome (DS).The estimated prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children with DS ranges from 45-83%, compared to 1-6% in the general pediatric population. Untreated OSA in children has been associated with daytime sleepiness, cognitive or behavioral problems, and cardiovascular complications, all which are common in children with DS. Adenotonsillectomy (AT) is the first line treatment for OSA in children, however, most large studies of AT outcomes have excluded children with DS. Available evidence demonstrates that AT is far less effective in children with DS than in the general pediatric population, with 48 to 95% of children with DS having persistent OSA after AT. Medical treatments such as positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy are frequently inadequate or poorly tolerated in this population, so many children with DS and OSA remain untreated. Drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) enables direct observation of the sites and patterns of obstruction during sedated sleep using a flexible endoscope passed through the nose into the pharynx. DISE was developed to guide surgical decisions in adult OSA, and in recent years has also been used to design personalized surgical interventions in children. Using this DISE Rating Scale, the investigators have demonstrated that children with DS are more prone to tongue base and supraglottic obstruction than non-DS children, suggesting the need for more personalized surgical treatments that are tailored to the common sources of obstruction in this population. Several small case series demonstrate that DISE-directed surgery can be effective in treating OSA in children with DS. However, because there have been few prospective studies and no randomized trials comparing different treatment options in this population, there remains uncertainty about whether such a personalized approach leads to superior outcomes compared to the first line AT. It is the investigators' hypothesis that personalized DISE-directed surgery that uses existing procedures to address specific fixed and dynamic anatomic features causing obstruction in each child with DS will be superior to the current first line approach of AT. This novel approach may improve OSA outcomes and reduce the burden of unnecessary AT or secondary surgery for persistent OSA after an ineffective AT.

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