Patients newly diagnosed with sleep apnea and hospitalized for heart failure had a higher risk of death compared with peers, according to Medscape.
In the first year after being discharged from the hospital, 58 patients with central sleep apnea and 103 patients with obstructive sleep apnea completed CPAP therapy as recommended: they used the device for more than 4 hours a night for 6 to 12 months. These patients had a survival that was comparable to that of patients who did not have sleep-disordered breathing.
Thus, “sleep-disordered breathing is potentially treatable and may provide an opportunity to impact the outcome of HF hospitalizations,” Khayat and colleagues write. The group is currently evaluating the effect of sleep-apnea treatment in patients with HF in a randomized controlled trial.
