Beyond the growth delay in children with sleep-related breathing disorders: a systematic review

INTRODUCTION: The availability of high-quality studies on the association between sleep-disordered breathing in children and delayed growth associated with the hormonal profile recorded before surgery and at follow-up is limited. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: Medline PubMed, Scopus and WebOfScience databases were searched for relevant publications published between January 2008 to January 2020 and a total of 261 potentially eligible studies were identified. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Following review 19 papers were eligible for inclusion: seven reported a significant postsurgical increase in growth regardless of initial weight status, type of surgery, type of study design, and length of follow-up period. The only high-quality study was a randomized controlled trial that found an increased risk of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome relapse in overweight children. Twelve studies reported the significant increase in growth parameters showing that IGF-1, IGFBP-3, and ghrelin may boost growth after surgery. CONCLUSIONS: The current systematic review demonstrates a scarcity of high-quality studies on growth delay in children with sleep-disordered breathing. Significant catch-up growth after surgery in the short term and changes in IGF-1, IGFBP-3, ghrelin, and leptin levels has been reported in most published studies.