Chest
Original ResearchSleep MedicineSleep-Related Breathing Disorders in Patients With Pulmonary Hypertension
Section snippets
Patients
Consecutive patients attending our PH clinic were asked to participate on informed consent. PH was defined by a mean pulmonary arterial pressure ≥25 mm Hg with a pulmonary capillary occlusion pressure ≤ 15 mm Hg during right-heart catheterization. PH was classified according to the World Health Organization,8 and patients were included if pulmonary arterial hypertension was idiopathic, associated with collagen vascular or congenital heart disease, or if chronic thromboembolic PH was present.
Patients
The 38 patients included in the study represent a typical cohort of PH patients seen at a specialized center with female preponderance (Table 1). Most patients were in NYHA classes II and III under stable specific PH therapy according to current guidelines.8 Medication included inhaled iloprost (21%), bosentan (50%), sildenafil (50%), and combinations (37%). The 6-min walking distance was moderately reduced. The patients had severe precapillary PH with markedly increased pulmonary arterial
Discussion
We found a high prevalence of sleep-related breathing disturbances in patients with various forms of PH. Seventeen of the 38 patients (45%) had ≥10 apnea/hypopnea events/h, 39% had ≥10 CSR/CSA events/h, and 11% had ≥10 obstructive apnea/hypopnea events/h. In addition, the majority of the patients (68%) spent >10% of the night with a low arterial oxygen saturation <90%. Sleep-related breathing disorders were not correlated with measures of hemodynamic impairment, and they were not clinically
Acknowledgment
We thank Ursula Treder, RN, Catherine Morger, BSc/CST, Mile Vignjevic, RN, and Clea Specker, RN, for excellent technical assistance.
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This study was performed at the Pulmonary Division, University Hospital of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, and was supported by scientific research grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Swiss Respiratory Society, and the Zurich Lung Ligue.
LifeShirt monitors were provided by VivoMetrics, Ventura, CA.
The authors have no conflicts of interest with the present work to disclose.
Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.html).