In this retrospective big data-based study performed on a large group of adolescents aged 12-18 years who underwent T&A for OSA. We observed that BMI z-score may change in any direction, with a tendency toward normalization of BMI z-score. Underweight and severe lean adolescents tended to increase their BMI z-score 3 years following the surgery, while overweight and obese individuals tended to reduce it. Age, gender and race had no effect on outcome and could not predict BMI z-score change following T&A. In the underweight category BMI Z-score increased significantly while in the severe thinness group there were only 2 individuals, but both showed a substantial BMI z-score increase following the surgery. Thus, it can be said that T&A worked in the direction of “normalization” of z-score.
It has been well documented that there is a strong link between OSA and the metabolic syndrome in adults which is multifactorial and is a consequence of visceral obesity and insulin resistance. There is a bidirectional feedforward association between them, with weight modification always being part of the treatment35. While infants with OSA are frequently underweight (usually suffer from failure to thrive), and adults with OSA are frequently overweight, in adolescents data are less clear, although in recent years adolescent OSA was reported to increase due to obesity36,37 .
In our study 60% of the adolescents were not obese or overweigh, which might partially explain why as a group there was a small trend of increase in BMI Z score following T&A. Interestingly, the two groups of overweight and obese accounting for approximately 40% of the participants tended to reduce their BMI Z score in the long term follow up after T&A. This is an encouraging and relatively novel finding for adolescents, indicating that OSA may contribute to obesity and thus OSA treatment may result in weight reduction as we have previously suggested in adults38,39 In contrast, other studies exploring the association of T&A and weight reduction demonstrated an increase in BMI following T&A. Amin et al demonstrated an increase in BMI after 1 year following T&A in school age children (7-13 years) especially for those who were obese at baseline. The velocity of the BMI increase after T&A was an independent risk factor for OSA recurrence 40. Other studies including a systematic review as well showed similar results, but they all included wide age range from 0-18 years old with no stratification according to age subgroups and different outcome for obese and normal weight children. 41,42 Potential mechanisms for weight reduction following T&A may include reduced appetite (which is known to be high in sleepy individuals due to Ghrelin secretion), increase in physical activity (which is a direct result from reduction of sleepiness), and improvement in insulin sensitivity. Other components of the metabolic syndrome, lipid profile and insulin resistance in obese children and adolescents have been shown to improve with the resolution of OSA after T&A28,43,44Our data in this study supports the notion of having two OSA phenotype that change around puberty, from lymphadenoid hypertrophy to an OSA related more to obesity45.The unpredicted changes observed to all directions in our study resembles findings from juvenile rat studies and clinical trials, in which the removal of airway obstruction was not able to restore the dysregulated hormonal axes 46 and other lifestyle behaviors (high caloric intake, physical activity) had a strong influence47,48. Seven weeks following obstruction removal in juvenile rats showed that these animals still had high ghrelin levels and consumed more food, yet exhibited growth retardation due to deregulation of GH homeostasis 46. Although the participants in the current study were adolescents (not exactly parallel to juvenile rats), increased ghrelin levels and food consumption, along with dysregulation of GH release, may explain substantial increase in BMI Z score as was observed in our underweight and severe lean participants, although such potential mechanisms will require a future study.
In a study aimed to examine anatomical parameters in adolescents using MRI, obese adolescents with OSAS had increased adenotonsillar tissue compared with obese and lean control subjects (total of 137 subjects) without OSAS. Lymphoid tissue, rather than other soft tissue components, was the primary structural abnormality in obese adolescents. This finding supports adenotonsillectomy to be considered as treatment for OSAS in these obese adolescents, as opposed to adults in whom T&A is commonly insufficient, requiring treatment with CPAP or weight reduction49. In another study, in obese children and adolescents aged 7-18 years, OSA improved with weight reduction in the same manner as obese adults are responding to weight reduction50. Thus, our study indicates that T&A may improve weight, suggesting that OSA itself contributes to the weight increase process in adolescents.
On the other hand, very lean (underweight and severe underweight) adolescents responded with BMI z-score increase following T&A. The mechanism for this is unclear. In infants OSA is associated with FTT with suggested mechanisms of reduced calorie intake and increased energy expenditure due to work of breathing. We did not assess food intake or work of breathing in our retrospective study and cannot confirm or rule out these mechanisms in our adolescents. However, it is important to point out that of the 8 cases in these categories, 6 gained weight and moved up to normal BMI category, and only 1 individual became overweight the remaining 8th individual reduced weight and changed from thinness to severe thinness category (table 3). Obviously, our study suffers from being underpowered for underweight adolescents (n=8), yet due to the dramatic weight gain these changes were statistically significant. Further studies are required to better understand this (small) subgroup of underweight adolescents with OSA, and the effect of T&A on them.
The strengths of our study are the large number of participants, being a real "field" study indicating changes observed in "real life" with no research intervention, and the relatively large follow up period (3 years for all, in some up to 5 years). On the other hand, there are several limitations in our study. First, this is a retrospective data base study. However, we believe that the well-kept registry of Clalit together with the large number of participants still makes the results of this study valid and representative. Actually, the fact that this is a “field study” report and not prospective weight-change follow-up study makes it somewhat more representative of the “real” clinical world. Second, PSG numerical results (i.e. apnea hypopnea index, oxygen saturation, sleep time etc.) were not available from the Clalit registry. We only had the diagnosis code for OSA. Thus, we cannot provide data regarding the effect of T&A on OSA in our study, or the correlation between change in OSA and change in BMI z-score. We can only make a logical guess that at least in those with substantial weight reduction following T&A OSA was improved but again we cannot support it by data in our study. However, it is supported by some data from previous studies. Finally, the data represents only the insurers of Clalit, thus cannot be automatically generalized for the whole Israeli population. However, we believe that it is quiet representative and are unaware of any specific weight or OSA related data and preference of other medical insurance. Thus, we believe these results are representative and generalizable.