- Figure 14
Survival in HF Patients with Treated and Untreated OSA
FIG. 14: Since sympathetic activity is one of the most important prognostic factors in heart failure, and (as shown in the previous Figure) treating OSA with CPAP during the daytime reduced sympathetic nerve burst frequency, we might expect that OSA would be associated with an increased mortality rate and that treating OSA with CPAP might reduce that mortality rate.
This Figure represents data from heart failure patients showing survival in those with mild-to-no sleep apnea (M-NSA, recorded in the baseline sleep study) compared with those with OSA.[6] In the 14 patients with M-NSA (red line), mortality over an average of 3 years (maximum 7.3 years) was 12%. In patients with heart failure and untreated OSA (blue line), the mortality rate was double, at 24%, a significant increase. In patients with heart failure and OSA who were treated with CPAP there was no mortality at all. The difference between the treated and the untreated group was not significant, probably due to the small sample size (14 patients with treated OSA versus 37 untreated). Nevertheless, there was a strong trend toward an improvement, which supported the hypothesis that treating OSA and heart failure would improve mortality.
References
Wang H, Parker JD, Newton GE, et al. Influence of obstructive sleep apnea on mortality in patients with heart failure. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2007;49:1625–1631.
