Chest
Clinical Investigations: MiscellaneousSleep Apnea After 1 Year Domiciliary Nasal-Continuous Positive Airway Pressure and Attempted Weight Reduction: Potential for Weaning From Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
Section snippets
Study Design
All consecutive patients prescribed N-CPAP at home for idiopathic SAS between January 1989 and December 1992 were invited to participate in a follow-up program, including regular visits to the Chest Clinic and a two-night PSG at least once a year. Informed consent was obtained from each participant. All the patients had been studied in our Sleep Laboratory and showed obstructive apneas and hypopneas, with a baseline apnea hypopnea index (AHI) greater than 10/h. Each patient was studied again in
Patients and N-CPAP
Ninety-five subjects agreed to participate; 32 were enrolled in 1989 and 1990, and a further 63 in 1991 and 1992 (this increase over time being largely due to the fact that N-CPAP has been reimbursed in Belgium since 1991). One patient died from alcoholic pancreatitis. Nineteen patients stopped CPAP therapy or were unavailable for follow-up. In a further 27, PSG could not be obtained after 1 year, for various reasons. Forty-eight subjects were restudied at the Sleep Laboratoiy after 1 year of
DISCUSSION
In the present study, we have treated 95 patients with SAS by domiciliary N-CPAP combined with attempted weight reduction and we have shown a significant reduction in severity of sleep apnea after 1 year in a group of 39 patients highly compliant to CPAP. We used full-night PSG without CPAP rather than, as in some previous studies, PSG without CPAP for part of the night, either following4 or preceeding2, 3 a part with CPAP, and found a mean fall in AHI from 67 to 50/h, with 4 of 39 subjects
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Dr. J.-C. Yernault for his support and F. Martinez Vadillo for secretarial assistance.
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No author has a financial involvement in any organization with a direct financial interest in the subject discussed.
revision accepted August 9.