Chest
Clinical Investigations: SleepCardiac Arrhythmias, Snoring, and Sleep Apnea
Section snippets
Patients
We studied 458 consecutive and unselected patients referred to the sleep clinic at St. Michael's Hospital for evaluation of possible sleep apnea. Snoring was the chief complaint in the vast majority of patients, although daytime sleepiness and tiredness were also common.
Polysomnographic Measurements
In all 458 patients, we carried out nocturnal polysomnography, which included measurements of EEG, submental, and anterior tibial EMG, oronasal flow using thermistors, chest wall and abdominal excursions using inductance
Results
Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the patient population examined in this study. There were 336 men and 122 women. Most patients (244/458) did not have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (AHI ≤10), 121/458 (26 percent) had AHI between 10 and 30, 41/458 (9 percent) had AHI between 30 and 50, and 52/458 patients (11 percent) had AHI >50.
There were 82 patients with history of cardiac disease (hypertension, 51; previous myocardial infarction, 6; angina pectoris, 5; congestive heart failure, 4;
Discussion
This study shows that (1) patients with obstructive sleep apnea have higher prevalence of arrhythmia than nonapneic patients, (2) patients without arrhythmias, as a group, have less severe apnea and nocturnal hypoxemia than patients with arrhythmias, and (3) prevalence of arrhythmias is independent of snoring, but it is linked to sleep apnea and nocturnal hypoxemia. The study design has certain limitations which could conceivably influence some of our conclusions.
One of the drawbacks is the use
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Revision accepted December 9