Many children are dealing with colds this season, but what about adding sleep apnea to those ailments.
A Harrington family’s 9-year-old daughter Zion, who also has down syndrome, has dealt with all of those issues since birth. But not so much anymore, thanks to Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children.
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Dr. Richard Schmidt is a pediatric ear, nose, and throat surgeon at Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children and tells us more about a sleep endoscopy and how robotic surgery helped Zion.
“Zion had pretty significant sleep apnea and it was something that not only did the family and the parents notice at home but she had had a sleep study, which is a pretty routine procedure in general and certainly in children with downs syndrome,” says Dr. Schmidt.
He says the problem is typically solved with a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, but Zion has already had those procedures, so the next step was a sleep endoscopy.
“That’s a procedure were we actually look through her nose and look at the back of her through while she’s asleep under anesthesia. So, she’s breathing spontaneously and the idea is that the anesthesiologist has created a state similar to actual sleep in her bed at home,” Dr. Schmidt says.
The endoscopy revealed that Zion had very large lingual tonsils which are located in the back of the tongue’s base. Dr. Schmidt decided that Zion needed TransOral Robotic Surgery.
“So trans oral means through the mouth cause that’s approach we use and robotic surgery has been around now since the early 2000’s,” Dr. Schmidt says. “We’ve been doing lingual tonsilectomies for many, many years, as a way to try to treat this, but it is very difficult to access that area because of its location with conventional means. I think in the past we couldn’t do as good as a job as we can with a robot.”
Nemours A.I. duPont Hospital for Children is the only hospital in the region that performs the TransOral Robotic Surgery in children. Although it’s called robotic surgery, the doctor is in control.
Zion had surgery last November and her mother says the results have been amazing. Zion’s mother says she no longer wakes up sleepy and her pediatrician has reported that she could definitely hear and notice improvements in Zion’s breathing. The surgery has made an overall difference in her activity level and Zion has even lost weight.
Zion now has a better chance at a lifetime of good health.
