Construction of the airway obstruction evaluation system of the childhood sleep apnea syndrome using Fluid-structure analysis

儿童阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停综合征(OSAS)并不罕见，是一个主要的健康问题。不幸的是，手术的成功率并不总是很高，因为上呼吸道的阻塞部位差别很大。计算机断层扫描(CT)的形态表现与上呼吸道的功能性阻塞部位并不总是完全一致。因此，建立一种检测整个上呼吸道的特定阻塞部位的方法对于成功治疗OSAS是必不可少的。我们通过流体-结构相互作用(FSI)分析检查了一名OSAS儿童上呼吸道模型中的阻塞部位。我们建立了一种将呼吸道模型与FSI分析相结合的新方法。这种方法可以定位障碍物的位置，模拟空气压力和速度的大小，比单纯的形态评价更准确地评价通风状况。

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) in children is not rare and is a major health problem. Unfortunately, surgery's success rate is not always high because obstruction sites of the upper airway vary considerably. Morphological findings from computed-tomography (CT) do not always coincide precisely with the functional obstruction sites in the upper airway. Consequently, establishing a method to detect the specific obstruction sites of the whole upper airway is indispensable to successful treatment of OSAS. We examined the obstruction sites in an upper airway model of a OSAS child by fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis.We established a new method combining an airway model with FSI analysis. This method can locate the obstruction sites and simulate the magnitude of air pressure and velocity, evaluating the ventilation condition more precisely than with a morphological evaluation alone.