Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is highly prevalent in patients with high blood pressure (BP). Severity of SDB can be evaluated by the number of apneas and hypopneas per hour (AHI) or by measures of hypoxia. The objective of this study was to assess the association between different measures of SDB and BP. In 134 consecutive patients, polygraphy was performed to determine the AHI. Pulse oximetry was used to determine hypoxemic burden (time below 90% oxygen saturation [T90] and hypoxia load [HL], representing the integrated area above the curve of desaturation). AHI did not correlate with systolic and diastolic BP or pulse pressure. In contrast, HL correlated with pulse pressure during the day (P = .01) and night (P = .0034) before and after adjustment for body mass index. The correlation between systolic BP and HL at night disappeared following adjustment for body mass index. This study generates the hypothesis that nocturnal hypoxemic burden may represent a suitable marker of BP pattern and a potential treatment target in hypertensive patients.
| INTRODUCTIONSleep-disordered breathing (SDB), particularly obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), is highly prevalent in patients with hypertension. where CPAP reduced daytime blood pressure (BP) by 6.5 mm Hg, compared with a 3.1 mm Hg increase in untreated patients. 10 In a meta-analysis of 3 randomized-controlled trials, CPAP-withdrawal resulted in a clinically relevant increase in BP, which was considerably higher than BP in conventional CPAP trials, and the effects of CPAP-withdrawal may be underestimated when office BP is used.
11These studies suggest an involvement of SDB in the pathophysiology of increased BP. Besides systolic and diastolic BP, increased pulse pressure typically reflects aortic stiffness, which is attributable to fatigue of elastin and increased pressure wave reflections, and is predictive of stroke 12 and cardiovascular mortality. [13][14][15] The associations between different parameters for severity of SDB and BP parameters are unclear.Presently, severity of SDB is evaluated by the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). 16 The AHI is an event-based measure of severity of SDB that considers the number of hypopneas and apneas per hour during sleep, but does not incorporate the degree and duration of desaturations. Therefore, progression of cardiac remodeling and cardiovascular events triggered by hypoxia is neither detected nor predicted by the AHI. In this cross-sectional explorative study, we enrolled patients with suspected sleep apnea and performed unattended polygraphy and 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring to identify which measure of SDB correlates best with different BP parameters.