Chest
Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Preliminary Report Comparing Nasal CPAP to Nasal Oxygen in Patients with Mild OSA
Section snippets
Subjects
Subjects were recruited from patients studied in the Sleep Apnea Laboratory at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, either through routine clinical referral or as part of an ongoing study of sleep disordered breathing in the elderly.11
We defined an apnea as total cessation of airflow at the nose and mouth lasting for at least 10 seconds as indicated by both a thermistor and a CO2 meter. We defined hypopnea as a reduction in the amplitude of the thermistor signal by at least 50
RESULTS
Patient characteristics are reported in Table 1. These patients are typical of those commonly encountered in clinical practice of sleep apnea: the majority are overweight and they are all men. In every patient, apneas were predominantly obstructive.
Results of treatment of sleep disordered breathing and oxygen saturation are reported in Table 2. In general, nasal CPAP was more effective in reducing SDB events, but oxygen was more effective in improving oxygen saturation. Repeated measures
DISCUSSION
To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare the effects of nasal CPAP and nasal oxygen treatment on the major sequelae of mild obstructive sleep apnea. The main findings of our study were that oxygen does not reduce the total number of sleep disordered breathing events compared to baseline or placebo, although CPAP certainly does. However, oxygen does improve nocturnal oxygenation as does CPAP. With the exception of reduced number of arousals noted with CPAP, neither form of treatment
REFERENCES (30)
- et al.
Reversal of obstructive sleep apnea by continuous positive airway pressure applied through the nares
Lancet
(1981) - et al.
The effect of low flow oxygen on sleep-disordered breathing and oxygen desaturation: a study of patients with chronic obstructive lung disease
Chest
(1980) - et al.
Mini-mental state
J Psychiatric Res
(1975) - et al.
Obstructive sleep apnea
- et al.
Acute oxygen in patients with sleep apnea and COPD
Chest
(1986) Incidence of sleep apnea in a presumably healthy working population: a significant relationship with excessive daytime sleepiness
Sleep
(1983)- et al.
Physiologic basis of therapy for sleep apnea
Am Rev Respir Dis
(1986) - et al.
Long-term nasal CPAP use
Sleep Res
(1989) - et al.
Nasal CPAP therapy for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome: determinants of long-term compliance
Sleep Res
(1989) - et al.
Acute and long-term ventilatory effects of hyperoxia in the adult sleep apnea syndrome
Am Rev Respir Dis
(1982)
The effect of chronic nocturnal oxygen administration upon sleep apnea
Am Rev Respir Dis
Medical Research Council Domiciliary Oxygen Trial
Lancet
Continuous or nocturnal oxygen therapy in hypoxemic chronic obstructive lung disease
Ann Intern Med
Sleep-disordered breathing in healthy aged persons: one year followup of daytime sequellae
Sleep
Cited by (0)
Supported by the Sanders Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky NIA P 50AG-05144 (Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center) and by NIH General Clinical Research Center grant M01RR026202. We acknowledge the support of the University of Kentucky Major Research Instrument Bond Program in the purchase of equipment used in this study.
†Supported by a Preventive Pulmonary Academic Award from the National Institutes of Health.