Demographic and clinical presentation of children with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome with short and normal lingual frenula
| Subjects | Short frenulum | Normal frenulum | p-value | |
| Subjects | 150 | 63 | 87 | |
| Age years mean±sd (n/N) | 150 | 9.88±3.21 (63/150) | 8.05±3.59 (87/150) | 0.0015 |
| Females | 58 | 29/63 (46) | 29/87 (33) | 0.1288 |
| Symptoms | ||||
| Fatigue | 147 | 61/63 (96) | 86/87 (98) | 0.5725 |
| EDS | 73 | 35/63 (55) | 38/87 (43) | 0.1859 |
| Inattention/hyperactivity | 90 | 43/63 (68) | 47/87 (54) | 0.0926 |
| Anatomy | ||||
| High and narrow palatal vault | 63 | 56/70 (80) | 7/80 (8.75) | 0.0001 |
| Friedman tonsil score | 150 | 1.8±0.9 | 3.2±0.9 | 0.0001 |
| Mallampati scale score | 150 | 3.4±0.6 | 2.9±0.7 | 0.0001 |
| Past medical history | 150 | |||
| Difficulty sucking | 6 | 0 | ||
| Difficulty swallowing | 4 | 0 | ||
| Speech problems | 31 | 0 |
Data are presented as n, n/N (%) or mean±sd, unless otherwise stated. Feeding and swallowing difficulties were poorly recollected, except in a few cases where the problem was mentioned as “important”; the speech problems were better recalled and were described as “lisp”, “stutter” or having led to speech therapy, mostly in school (n=15). Despite speech therapy, the presence of a short lingual frenulum had not been investigated or mentioned to parents. EDS: excessive daytime sleepiness.