Current and Emerging Therapies for Pediatric Sleep Disorders: A Narrative Review
Abstract
Sleep disorders in children represent a significant public health concern with important implications for neurodevelopment, behavior, and overall health. Among these, pediatric obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep-related movement disorders are the most clinically relevant conditions requiring targeted therapeutic strategies. Pediatric OSA, affecting approximately 2-5% of children, is characterized by recurrent upper airway obstruction during sleep and is associated with cognitive, behavioral, and cardiovascular consequences. Management is multimodal, with adenotonsillectomy as first-line therapy, which improves most patients, although residual disease remains common. Adjunctive treatments include anti-inflammatory therapies such as intranasal corticosteroids and leukotriene receptor antagonists, positive airway pressure therapy, and emerging approaches such as high-flow nasal cannula, drug-induced sleep endoscopy-guided surgery, orthodontic interventions, and hypoglossal nerve stimulation in selected populations. Insomnia in children is primarily managed with behavioral interventions, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and parental education strategies. Melatonin has demonstrated modest efficacy in reducing sleep latency, especially in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, although long-term safety data remain limited. Narcolepsy requires a combination of behavioral and pharmacological management, with scheduled…
Read the paper
Related studies
- The Matrisome: In Silico Definition and In Vivo Characterization by Proteomics of Normal and Tumor Extracellular Matrices
- The Escherichia coli MG1655 in silico metabolic genotype: Its definition, characteristics, and capabilities
- In silico pharmacology for drug discovery: methods for virtual ligand screening and profiling
- In silico prediction of splice-altering single nucleotide variants in the human genome
- In silico clinical trials: how computer simulation will transform the biomedical industry
- In silico optimization of a guava antimicrobial peptide enables combinatorial exploration for peptide design
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.