We studied 15 children ofpreschool age who had obst ructive sleep apnea syndrom e to evaluate thei r dentof acial morph ology in relation to the pharyngeal airway spac e. We fo und that (1) sleep apnea was often associated with mandibular retrognathia , (2) the lower incisors tended to exhibit a retroclin e, (3) there were no signific ant differences in angular and linear measurements in the cranial base between pat ients with sleep apnea and a control group of30 nonapn eic children, and (4) the apn eic children had a narrower epipharynge al airwa y space than did the controls. These findin gs suggest that obstructive sleep apn ea is probably caused by both adenoidal hypertrophy and abnormal developm ent ofthe f acial skeleton. We highly recomm end cephalometric analysis as a valuable tool fo r conducting the presurgical evaluation of sleep apnea in children ofpreschool age.

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