Premature babies at higher risk of sleep apnea from narrowed upper airways

Agencies
December 25, 2017

Dec 25: A premature infant, born more than 3 weeks before the due date, has narrowed upper airways as compared to newborn peers carried to full term.

Premature birth leaves these children more susceptible to disordered breathing while sleeping, including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), an ailment characterized by increased upper-airway resistance that narrows airways.

"In addition to finding some airway volumes were smaller in preterm infants, our results indicated both sets of newborns had similar hypopharyngeal volumes. This suggests that risk factors that lead to OSA are confined to the uppermost airway and do not appear to be explained by enlarged adenoids and tonsils," says Anilawan Smitthimedhin, lead author of the paper.

In order to diagnose OSA, clinicians now use bronchoscopy, but the method has limitations, including the need to insert a lighted instrument into the airway, which can affect pressure and resistance within the airway.

The Children's National research team theorized that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could offer a non-invasive way to evaluate the upper airway, determine its anatomy and dynamic function, while shielding infants from radiation exposure that can accompany other imaging techniques.

They enrolled 96 infants who had undergone brain MRIs as part of an unrelated study about neonatal brain development. The newborns had a range of medical conditions, including suspected hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, cardiac disease and seizures/movement disorders.

Forty-nine of the infants were born preterm; at the time of the MRI, their corrected mean gestational age was 38.4 weeks. Forty-seven of the newborns were born full term; they received MRIs at 1.7 weeks of age.

The airway structures of interest included the nasopharynx (the upper part of the pharynx), oropharynx (located at the back of the mouth behind the oral cavity), hypopharynx (the entrance into the esophagus), adenoids and tonsils. The team displayed the volumetric imaging in three perpendicular planes and a three-dimensional model.

"Nasopharyngeal volume of full-term infants was 495.6 mm, compared with 221.1 mm in preterm infants. Oropharyngeal volume of full-term infants was 313.6 mm, compared with 179.3 mm in preterm infants," Smitthimedhin says.

Aided by volumetric 3D data that more accurately measures airway and lymphoid tissue, the team proposes to study a larger group of infants to determine whether narrowing of the uppermost airways predisposes very young children to experiencing OSA later in life.

"Ultimately, our goal is to incorporate dedicated, dynamic MR imaging of the airway while children sleep, which would provide real-time, detailed information about the changes associated with sleep. This innovation holds the promise of leading to more accurate, non-invasive diagnosis of OSA in infants," says Dorothy Bulas, M.D., chief of Diagnostic Imaging and Radiology at Children's National.

The findings have been published in the journal Clinical Imaging.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
January 16,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 16: Kerala Tourism on Wednesday shared a recipe of a popular meat dish in the Central Travancore region of Kerala, Beef Ularthiyathu, which is a special delicacy in the region.

Taking to its Twitter handle, the Kerala Tourism wrote, "Tender chunks of beef, slow-roasted with aromatic spices, coconut pieces, and curry leaves. A recipe for the most classic dish, Beef Ularthiyathu, the stuff of legends, from the land of spices, Kerala."

The State Tourism also shared the recipe of the delicacy with Twitteratis.

The tweet which has garnered 3.5 thousand likes so far had received a mixed response

While some said "beef is not Kerala's culture", others termed the recipe 'a match made in heaven".

Dr Vireandta Jilowa wrote, "Surprised to see it, that beef is being consumed despite BJP government in the Centre."

"We are not slaves of BJP at the Centre....people eat whatever they like in this state, including beef, pork, mutton and fish," another user Tatheesh Vijayakumar wrote.

In 2017, The Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Harsh Vardhan had ordered that the ministry has notified the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 to ensure that the sale of cattle is not meant for slaughter purposes.

Regulating animal trade is a state business, but animal welfare is a central subject.

In lieu of this, there was widespread opposition of the order, with many states openly denying accepting the notification.

Porotta and Kappa biriyani with beef are counted as delicacies by Keralites. 

Also Read: The Art of Prepping Meat

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
June 20,2020

The World Health Organisation has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a "new and dangerous" phase. Thursday saw the most cases in a single day reported to the WHO.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the day had seen 150,000 new cases with half of those coming from the Americas and large numbers also from the Middle East and South Asia, the BBC reported.

He said the virus was still spreading fast and the pandemic accelerating.

He acknowledged people might be fed up with self-isolating and countries were eager to open their economies but he said that now was a time for extreme vigilance.

Maria van Kerkhove, technical lead of the WHO's COVID-19 response, told a press conference the pandemic is "accelerating in many parts of the world".

"While we have seen countries have some success in suppressing transmission and bringing transition down to a low level, every country must remain ready," she said.

Mike Ryan, the head of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said that some countries had managed to flatten the peak of infections without bringing them down to a very low level.

"You can see a situation in some countries where they could get a second peak now, because the disease has not been brought under control," he said.

"The disease will then go away and reduce to a low level, and they could then get a second wave again in the autumn or later in the year."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 6,2020

Mar 6: The spread of the new coronavirus is shining the spotlight on a little-discussed gender split: men wash their hands after using the bathroom less than women, years of research and on-the-ground observations show.

Health officials around the world advise that deliberate, regular handwashing is one of the best weapons against the virus which causes a flu-like respiratory illness that can kill and has spread to around 80 countries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's online fact sheet "Handwashing: A corporate activity," cites a 2009 study that finds "only 31% of men and 65% of women washed their hands" after using a public restroom.

Social media comments about men's handwashing lapses forced an august British institution to caution visitors about bathroom behaviour this week.

After author Sathnam Sanghera complained on Twitter about "grown," "educated" men in the British Library toilets not washing their hands, the library responded, putting up additional signs reminding patrons to wash their hands in men's and women's bathrooms.

Thanks to "visitor feedback," a spokesman told Reuters, "we have increased further the number of posters in public toilets so that visitors are reminded of the importance of good hygiene at exactly the point where they can wash their hands."

Men and women approach handwashing after using the restroom differently, according to multiple surveys and field studies.

"Women wash their hands significantly more often, use soap more often, and wash their hands somewhat longer than men," according to a 2013 Michigan State University field study conducted by research assistants who observed nearly 4,000 people in restrooms around East Lansing, Michigan.

The study found 14.6% of men did not wash their hands at all after using the bathroom and 35.1% wet their hands but did not use soap, compared to 7.1% and 15.1% of women, respectively.

"If you stand in the men's bathroom at work, and watch men leave, they mostly don't wash their hands if they used the urinal," said one New York City public relations executive, who did not want to be identified for fear of alienating his colleagues.

Since the virus's spread, he's seen an uptick in men's handwashing at work, he noted. "I, for the record, do wash my hands all the time," he added.

Female medical staff in critical care units "washed their hands significantly more often than did their male counterparts after patient contact," a 2001 study published in the American Journal of Infection Control found.

Middle-aged women with some college education had the highest level of knowledge about hand hygiene, a survey published in 2019 by BMC Public Health, an open access public health journal, found.

Early information about coronavirus infection in China shows that men may be more susceptible to the disease. Just over 58% of the more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients reported in China through Jan. 29, 2020, were male, research published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows.

Researchers have not linked the difference to hand hygiene.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.