Sleep respiratory parameters in children with idiopathic epilepsy: A cross-sectional study

- Analysis of sleep respiratory parameters in children with idiopathic epilepsy.
- Obstructive events are more frequent in children with epilepsy than in controls.
- Non significant differences between children with good and poor seizure control.
- Our findings support routine screening for sleep breathing disorders in childhood epilepsy.

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to explore and compare through polysomnography respiratory sleep parameters between children with idiopathic epilepsy and healthy children.MethodsOur cross-sectional study included 40 children with idiopathic epilepsy and 27 healthy children, who underwent overnight polysomnography. Data about sleep respiratory parameters were obtained and statistically analyzed. The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05.ResultsThe prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome was significantly higher in the epilepsy group (35% vs 7.4%, p < 0.01). Moreover, the odds ratio of an obstructive apnea index ≥1 in the epilepsy group was 10.6 (95% Confidence Intervals: 3.08-37.08) in comparison to the control group. The mean value of the obstructive apnea-hypopnea index was significantly higher in children with epilepsy compared to healthy children (2.46 ± 1.22 vs 1.21 ± 0.83, p = 0.027). The mean values of central apnea index and desaturation index were comparable between these two groups. Longest apnea duration was significantly higher in the group of poor seizure control. All other sleep respiratory variables did not differ significantly between children with poor and good seizure control and between children with generalized and focal epilepsy.ConclusionsChildren with epilepsy seem to present more prominent sleep breathing instability in comparison to healthy children, which mainly includes a predisposition to obstructive respiratory events. More studies are needed to investigate the relationship between sleep apneas and seizure control.