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Clinical InvestigationsLong-term Compliance with Nasal Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Therapy of Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Section snippets
METHODS
Records from all patients with OSA referred to the Georgetown University Medical Center Sleep Disorders Center, Washington, DC, for nasal CPAP trials from October 1984 to September 1987 were included in this review (n = 125). Nineteen patients refused a home nasal CPAP trial or did not tolerate nasal CPAP in the laboratory and were excluded from this review of long-term compliance. Ten patients were unavailable for follow-up. The remaining 96 patients were followed up by telephone questionnaire
RESULTS
The baseline characteristics of the 96 long-term home nasal CPAP patients are displayed in Table 1. Eighty percent complained of severe daytime sleepiness and 20 (21 percent) had undergone previous uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) that was unsuccessful. The patients were predominantly male and obese (114.7 ± 30 kg, mean ± SD). All patients had significant OSA with sleep disruption and nocturnal hypoxemia. Table 2 shows the AHI, sleep staging, and minimum SaO2 in the entire group at baseline and
DISCUSSION
Obstructive sleep apnea can be successfully treated in most patients with nasal CPAP Sanders4 reported a dramatic reduction in sleep-disordered breathing, as measured by the apnea index in 18 of 21 patients with OSA using nasal CPAP. In our experience, 110 of our 125 patients with OSA tolerated a nasal CPAP trial and achieved remarkable alleviation of their sleep-disordered breathing. Although the utility of this therapy in OSA has been convincing, concern exists as to the realistic expectation
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Cited by (0)
Manuscript received February 17; revision accepted June 22.