New research shows that CPAP and mandibular advancement devices notably reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in patients with obstructive sleep apnea, reports Healio.
“Among patients with obstructive sleep apnea, both CPAP and [mandibular advancement device (MADs)] were associated with reductions in [blood pressure (BP)],” Daniel J. Bratton, PhD, a researcher from the department of pulmonology at the University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland, and colleagues wrote. “Network meta-analysis did not identify a statistically significant difference between the BP outcomes associated with these therapies.”
Bratton and colleagues searched the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases to identify patients with OSA from randomized clinical trials who used either CPAP or MADs to compare changes in BP, according to the abstract. They identified 51 studies with 4,888 patients that met inclusion criteria. Forty-four of studies compared CPAP with a control group; three studies analyzed MADs with a control group; three additional studies analyzed CPAP, MADs and a control group; and one study compared a CPAP group with a MADs group.
The researchers found that CPAP reduced systolic BP by 2.5 mm Hg (95% CI, 1.5-3.5) and diastolic BP by 2.0 mm Hg (95% CI, 1.3-2.7) compared with a control group, according to the abstract.
Further, Bratton and colleagues found an extra hour of CPAP in these patients was associated with an additional reduction of 1.5 mm Hg (95% CI, 0.8-2.3) for systolic BP and a reduction of 0.9 mm Hg (95% CI, 0.3-1.4) for diastolic BP.
