Published in:
01-11-2018 | Editorial
Should we treat any sleep apnea in patients with atrial fibrillation?
Authors:
Dominik Linz, Michael Arzt, Prashanthan Sanders, Michael Böhm
Published in:
Clinical Research in Cardiology
|
Issue 11/2018
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Excerpt
Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is common in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). However, there is a large variability in the reported prevalence of SBD and the exact prevalence remains unknown. The prevalence of SDB ranged between 9 and 49% in the general population and between 59 and 76% in patients with AF [
1‐
5] (Table
1). A recent study by Strotmann et al. [
6] confirms the high prevalence of SDB in patients with AF and preserved left ventricular ejection fraction. In 211 consecutive patients with AF (146 men; age 68.7 ± 8.5 years), only 6.6% of patients had no SDB [apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) < 5/h] and 60% of patients had moderate-to-severe SDB (AHI ≥ 15/h), of whom the majority had coexisting obstructive and central sleep apnea (OSA and CSA). This study reports the highest prevalence of SDB in a population of patients with AF [
6]. All available prevalence estimates of SDB in AF patients, are based on analyses of cross-sectional studies. Prospective longitudinal population-based studies evaluating the association between untreated OSA and incident AF are currently not available. …
