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Long‐term nasal CPAP does not ameliorate obstructive sleep apnoea
Author(s) -
Rolfe Isobel,
Olson L. G.,
Saunders N. A.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 0004-8291
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-5994.1991.tb00449.x
Subject(s) - medicine , continuous positive airway pressure , anesthesia , sleep (system call) , positive pressure , obstructive sleep apnea , computer science , operating system
Fifty‐seven patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) were treated for at least six months with nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). At follow‐up, sleep studies were performed in which CPAP was not used for the first half of the night. We compared the severity of OSA at follow‐up without CPAP to the severity of OSA during the patient's initial diagnostic study. Apnoea and hypopnoea index (AHI) fell from 41.4 ± 7.5 (mean ±95% CI) to 34.8 ± 7.9 ( p = 0.06 by Wilcoxon test) and minimum oxygen saturation rose from 71.6 ± 3.2 to 78.5 ± 2.6 (p < 0.001 ). Some of this change may have been due to reduced REM sleep in the follow‐up study (10.5±2.1% Total Sleep Time vs 7.4±2.4% TST, p <0.05). Long‐term nasal CPAP was not associated with any reduction of obesity (BMI before CPAP 31.9 ± 1.0, after CPAP 31.7 ± 1.0 ( p = 0.39). Systolic arterial pressure fell (before CPAP 143.0 ±4.5 mmHg, after CPAP 136.3 ± 4.6, p < 0.05) but diastolic pressure did not (before CPAP 88.5 ± 3.0 mmHg, after CPAP 85.6 ±2.9 mmHg, p = 0.11). We concluded that the effect of CPAP treatment for six or more months was a small fall in AHI and a small rise in minimum Sa0 2 , but that this would be of marginal clinical significance, and may be artefactual. (Aust NZ J Med 1991; 21: 235–238.)