Erin Kirkham
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), in which the airway repeatedly collapses during sleep, affects 1–4% of children. It can harm thinking, behavior and the heart, and it greatly raises healthcare use.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
- Topics
obstructive sleep apnea
pediatric sleep apnea
adenotonsillectomy
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Compare mean drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) airway obstruction scores in children randomized to sedation with propofol versus dexmedetomidine, testing whether propofol exaggerates airway collapse.
- Test whether airway obstruction seen on DISE but left untreated by adenotonsillectomy predicts changes in symptoms, behavior, quality of life and polysomnography after surgery.
- Determine whether obstruction found on pre-operative DISE predicts which children need further treatment for persistent obstructive sleep apnea after adenotonsillectomy.
More about the research
The standard first treatment is adenotonsillectomy, removal of the tonsils and adenoids, performed nearly half a million times a year in U.S. children. Yet children's airways differ in shape and behavior, and OSA often persists after surgery. Drug-induced sleep endoscopy (DISE) could help tailor surgery to each child. In DISE, doctors pass a flexible fiber-optic camera through the airway of a sedated child. Prospective evidence for DISE is lacking, though, partly because there is no standard sedation protocol and sedatives affect how open the airway stays.
Why it matters
Many children still have sleep apnea after tonsil and adenoid surgery. Establishing which sedative gives the most accurate airway exam could make DISE a reliable tool for planning individualized surgery. That could help surgeons spot children likely to need more treatment and improve outcomes for children with obstructive sleep apnea.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Eric Kezirian
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether tissue-repositioning soft palate surgery reduces upper airway collapsibility in people with obstructive sleep apnea, and whether the drop is larger when blockage is limited to the palate on drug-induced sleep endoscopy and airflow-shape analysis.
Louise O'Brien
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether an enhanced self-supported nasopharyngeal airway (ssNPA), a nasal stent that keeps the throat open, is acceptable to and tolerated by children with hypotonic upper airway obstruction and sleep apnea.
Devin L Brown
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine which obstructive sleep apnea endotypes, such as airway collapsibility, loop gain and arousal threshold, drive sleep apnea after stroke, and how they differ by ethnicity and from stroke-free participants, using polysomnography in the BASIC study.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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