Some forgotten issues in sleep apnoea

Extract

Almost all published scientific articles related to sleep apnoea begin their introduction section with the definition of the disease, its global prevalence and the most common treatment for symptomatic individuals. A typical example would be [1, 2]: “Obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS) is a common clinical condition in which the pharynx narrows or collapses repeatedly during sleep, causing obstructive sleep apnoea events. The direct consequences of the collapse are intermittent hypoxia and hypercapnia, recurrent arousals and increase in respiratory efforts, leading to secondary sympathetic activation, oxidative stress and systemic inflammation. Excessive daytime sleepiness is a burden for the majority of patients. Sleep apnoea is also associated with cognitive and cardiovascular co-morbidities. It is considered a major public health issue affecting almost one billion people all over the world. The most cost-effective treatment for the symptomatic forms of the disease remains continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP)”. However, this does not fully capture all dimensions of the disease's growing importance as well as the associated challenges needing to be addressed.