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Dr. Jake Dahl Receives NIH Grant to Create More Precise Method for Diagnosing Upper Airway Obstructions in Newborns

STORIES

Dr. Jake Dahl Receives NIH Grant to Create More Precise Method for Diagnosing Upper Airway Obstructions in Newborns

Headshot of John P Dahl, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS
John P Dahl, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS
Division Director, Otolaryngology
Full Biography

Jake Dahl, MD, PhD, MBA, FACS, Ear, Nose and Throat (Otolaryngology), received a $467,925 Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award (R21) from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).

The grant is for Dr. Dahl’s project “Development of a Novel Diagnostic Modality for Upper Airway Obstruction via Integrating Dynamic Computed Tomography with Computational Fluid Dynamics” for a project period of Sept. 1, 2024-Aug. 31, 2026 (Award Number 1R21DE033120-01A1).

As Dr. Dahl explains, upper airway obstruction (UAO) in newborns and infants is a potentially life-threatening condition. The way medical providers currently diagnose UAO is based on subjective assessments and does not provide quantitative measures of airflow disruption or take into account the critical, dynamic nature of the respiratory cycle.

The goal of this project is to develop an innovative, anatomically precise, patient-specific diagnosis method for UAO that will use the integration of dynamic upper airway computed tomography scanning with computational fluid dynamics. Computational fluid dynamics is the science of using computers to predict liquid and gas flows based on the governing equations of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy.

The team will focus their initial efforts on Robin Sequence (RS), a potentially fatal congenital craniofacial condition characterized by undersized jaw, posteriorly displaced tongue, and resulting UAO. They chose to first focus on RS patients due to the consistent clinical characteristics that these patients have.

Once validated in RS patients, this diagnostic approach could be applied to numerous other conditions impacted by UAO including obstructive sleep apnea and laryngomalacia, a condition in which the soft tissues of the larynx fall over the airway opening and partially block it.

“The results of this work will serve as the foundation for future prospective clinical studies focused on validating the novel diagnostic modality in clinical practice,” said Dr. Dahl. “This work has the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment decision-making process for patients with UAO as well as to significantly improve clinical outcomes by tailoring a treatment plan to the individual patient’s specific airway pathology.”

Co-investigators include Alberto Aliseda, PhD, University of Washington, and Kelly Evans, MD, and Michael Barbour, PhD, Seattle Children’s Hospital.