Comparison of polysomnography and sonography for assessing regularity of respiration during sleep in adenotonsillar hypertrophy.

Increasing awareness of the role of adenotonsillar hypertrophy in the etiology of chronic airway obstruction and disturbed respiration during sleep has created interest in the diagnostic methods available to assess the effects of obstruction. This study evaluates and compares simultaneously-obtained recordings of polysomnography and sleep sonography in children obstructed by adenotonsillar hypertrophy. Four hundred sixty-five 4-minute samples obtained from 18 patients in a clinical studies unit were analyzed and rated as to severity. Agreement between polysomnography and sleep sonography was very high in scoring the respiratory pattern (r = 0.79) and detecting apnea (r = 0.89). These findings demonstrate that sleep sonography is a reliable method for evaluating patients with upper airway obstruction due to adenotonsillar hypertrophy.