OBJECTIVES Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common neurological disorder but it is not sufficiently recognized in children and adolescents. It often overlaps with growing pains in children, and as a result the clinical characteristics of pediatric RLS are not well studied, especially in Asia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical characteristics of pediatric RLS patients in Korea and compare it to those of adult RLS patients. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all pediatric RLS patients (≤18 years) from January 2015 to December 2018 in a regional tertiary hospital sleep center. We randomly selected adult primary RLS patients without comorbid medical disorders from our sleep center's dataset as controls. The number of controls was determined to be twice the number of pediatric RLS patients according to sample size calculation. The clinical and polysomnographic (PSG) characteristics of both groups were compared. The independent t-test, chi-squared test, and Fisher's exact test were used for analyzing quantitative data between the two groups and p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS Twenty-nine primary pediatric RLS patients and 57 adult RLS patients were enrolled. Pediatric RLS patients showed equal prevalence between sexes, as opposed to adults where there is female predominance. Ferritin level was significantly lower in pediatric patients, although it remained within the normal range. Also, pediatric RLS patients showed less severe RLS symptoms and had better sleep quality than adults did in both objective and subjective measures. In addition, PLMS was shown to be less common in pediatric RLS patients compared to adults. CONCLUSIONS Pediatric RLS patients showed relatively mild to moderate RLS symptoms and a smaller likelihood of experiencing PLMS than adult patients, which is comparable to similar western studies. Long-term evaluation of a patient's clinical course through multicenter clinical studies is strongly suggested for the future.

中文翻译：

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韩国小儿腿部躁动综合征的临床特征。

目的不安腿综合征（RLS）是一种常见的神经系统疾病，但在儿童和青少年中并未得到充分认识。它经常与儿童不断增长的疼痛重叠，因此，对儿科RLS的临床特征还没有很好的研究，尤其是在亚洲。这项研究的目的是调查韩国小儿RLS患者的临床特征，并将其与成人RLS患者的临床特征进行比较。方法我们回顾性研究了2015年1月至2018年12月在区域三级医院睡眠中心的所有小儿RLS患者（≤18岁）的病历。我们从睡眠中心的数据集中随机选择没有合并症的成人原发性RLS患者作为对照。根据样本量计算，对照的数量被确定为儿科RLS患者数量的两倍。比较两组的临床和多导睡眠图（PSG）特征。使用独立的t检验，卡方检验和Fisher精确检验来分析两组之间的定量数据，并且p <0.05被认为具有统计学意义。结果招募了29例原发性儿科RLS患者和57例成人RLS患者。小儿RLS患者在男女中显示出相同的患病率，而成年人中女性占主导地位。小儿铁蛋白水平显着降低，尽管仍保持在正常范围内。也，无论是客观还是主观测量，小儿RLS患者的RLS症状均较成人轻，睡眠质量更好。此外，与成人相比，小儿RLS患者PLMS较少见。结论与成人患者相比，小儿RLS患者表现出相对轻至中度的RLS症状，发生PLMS的可能性较小，这与西方类似研究相当。强烈建议通过多中心临床研究对患者的临床病程进行长期评估。这可与类似的西方研究相提并论。强烈建议通过多中心临床研究对患者的临床病程进行长期评估。这可与类似的西方研究相提并论。强烈建议通过多中心临床研究对患者的临床病程进行长期评估。