Numerical simulation of the adenoidectomy preoperative and postoperative upper airway in children with OSAHS

Abstract

Obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is a highly prevalent and potentially risky disease. Hypertrophic adenoids are a fundamental cause of pediatric secretory otitis media, sinusitis and snoring. And then the nostril jams and eustachian tube swallow mouth oppression is the main factor of adenoid hypertrophy. The present study takes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach to assessing postoperative effect in children with OSAHS undergoing adenoidectomy by comparison of the flow field characteristics between postoperative with preoperative upper airway. The computational fluid dynamics models were constructed using raw data from preoperative and postoperative computed tomogram images of three children with OSAHS. The surgical operation altered the abnormal anatomy of the upper airway. The whole upper airway resistance decreased significantly. It is shown that the airflow patterns in postoperative nasopharyngeal airway are significantly different from preoperative subjects.