According to Anesthesiology News, preoperative CPAP use can aid obstructive sleep apnea patients undergoing surgery.

Dr. Nagappa and his colleagues performed an English-language literature search for OSA studies of adult surgical patients who were either using or not using perioperative CPAP, with reported data on AHI and hospital LOS. A total of five manuscripts were analyzed.

As Dr. Nagappa reported at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (abstract A4012), two studies provided data on preoperative (n=100) and postoperative (n=51) AHI in patients treated with CPAP. These studies revealed that CPAP significantly reduced the perioperative API. Indeed, the preoperative index of 37±19 events per hour fell to 12±16 events per hour (P<0.001).

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