Skip to main content

Ventilatory Burden Can Assess Severity of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com.

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Sept. 18, 2023 -- Automated ventilatory burden, which represents the proportion of overnight breaths with <50 percent normalized amplitude, can measure the severity of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a study published online Sept. 12 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Noting that the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) used for diagnosis of OSA has demonstrable limitations, Ankit Parekh, Ph.D., from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues proposed a novel automated measure, ventilatory burden, and examined its ability to overcome these limitations. Data were included from two epidemiological cohorts -- the Sao Paolo Epidemiological Study (EPISONO) and Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS) -- as well as two retrospective clinical cohorts, Relating Sleep Disordered Breathing to Daytime Function (DAYFUN) and New York University Center for Brain Health.

The researchers found that in asymptomatic healthy participants, the 95th percentile of ventilatory burden was 25.2 and 26.7 percent across the EPISONO and DAYFUN cohorts, respectively. There was an association seen for ventilatory burden with the degree of upper airway obstruction in a dose-response manner; ventilatory burden also exhibited low night-to-night variability. Before and after adjustment for covariates including hypoxic burden, ventilatory burden was predictive of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in the SHHS cohort. AHI predicted all-cause mortality but was not linked to cardiovascular disease mortality in the SHHS cohort.

"Clinicians who rely on arbitrary rules and thresholds for assessing severity of sleep apnea will now have a better validated tool to better manage sleep apnea and patients can receive the best care earlier," Parekh said in a statement.

Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted September 2023

Read this next

Large Language Models May Aid Emergency Department Triage

TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- Large language models (LLMs) could enhance emergency department triage workflows, according to a study published online May 7 in JAMA Network...

Neighborhood Inequity Tied to More People Living With Vision Difficulty, Blindness

TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- Residential measures of inequity are associated with a greater number of individuals living with vision difficulty and blindness (VDB), according to a...

Elite Running Tied to Longer Life Expectancy

TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- Sub-four-minute mile runners have greater longevity than the general population, with results dating back as far as the 1950s, according to a study...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.