PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ottavio Vitelli AU - Giorgio Baccari AU - Jole Rabasco AU - Nicoletta Pietropaoli AU - Marco Del Pozzo AU - Maria Elena Liverani AU - Maria Pia Villa TI - Precocious imbalance of autonomic nervous system in children with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome DP - 2014 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P3275 VI - 44 IP - Suppl 58 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P3275.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/Suppl_58/P3275.full SO - Eur Respir J2014 Sep 01; 44 AB - The aim of this prospective study was to investigate the activity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) during sleep in children with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), in order to detect a precocious imbalance of ANS.Materials and methods: A total of 43 subjects between 4 to 15 years of age (7.26 ± 2.8 years), undergoing a diagnostic assessment for OSA in our Paediatric Sleep Centre (Rome, Italy), for habitual snoring and apnea were enrolled.A time domain index (the R-apnea index) was developed to evaluate heart rate variability (HRV) strictly related to obstructive events during sleep. Moreover Poincaré plot of RR intervals during the whole night was calculated.Results: The R-apnea index was negatively correlated with apnea hypopnea index (AHI) (r = -0.360, p = 0.028). Furthermore AHI and the duration of the disease have been identified as the only variables that were significantly correlated with the R-apnea index.Three groups were subsequently created on the basis of polysomnographic findings according to AHI. The R-apnea index resulted significantly lower in patient with severe OSA compared to primary snoring/mild OSA subjects (p<0.05).Looking at Poincaré plot, SD1 (short term variability) showed a diminishing trend with severity of OSA, although not reaching statistical significance.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that an early autonomic impairment was present in children with OSA since HRV was altered in the very short term (R-apnea index) and in short term (SD1).