obst. to central/PNG/Slide10.PNG)
- Figure 10
Sympathetic Tone in Chronic Heart Failure
This case is interesting because there is an increase of sympathetic tone in heart failure, with or without sleep-disordered breathing, but OSA is also associated with an increase in sympathetic tone (graph lower left).[1] However the latter is sympathetic tone that can be decreased with treatment, as seen in a patient with OSA but without heart failure (lower tracing at the top of the Figure). This is important because in heart failure the prognosis for survival increases in association with the decrease in sympathetic tone (graph lower right).[2]
References
Spaak J, Egri ZJ, Kubo T, et al. Muscle sympathetic nerve activity during wakefulness in heart failure patients with and without sleep apnea. Hypertension 2005;46:1327–1332.
Cohn JN, Levine TB, Olivari MT, et al. Plasma norepinephrine as a guide to prognosis in patients with chronic congestive heart failure. N Engl J Med. 1984;311:819–823.
