Skip to main content
  • Poster presentation
  • Open access
  • Published:

Association of sleep disordered breathing with clinical trajectories in patients undergoing cardiac surgery

Introduction

The prevalence of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is presumably high among individuals with cardiac diseases [1], nonetheless SDB remains predominantly undiagnosed. However, unrecognized SDB might have relevant impact on the postoperative course of patients undergoing cardiac surgery [2].

Methods

Polygraphic recordings of 181 patients, without previous diagnosis of SDB, undergoing standard cardiac surgical procedures with extracorporeal circulation were obtained during a preoperative night. The apnea-hypopnea index (AHI - the number of apneas, hypopneas per hour recorded) was determined and compared with clinical characteristics and postoperative course.

Results

The prevalence of SDB was considerably high among all examined patients. Median AHI was 20.8 (interquartile range, 10.6 to 36.4). Preoperative AHI was >30 in 32% of all examined individuals. During the first three postoperative days, preoperative AHI >30 was associated with a prolonged weaning time, a reduced oxygenation index (arterial pO2/FiO2), an impaired kidney function, an augmented inflammatory response and an overall increased length of stay in the ICU. The observed association of high preoperative AHI values with postoperative clinical characteristics remained statistically significant throughout the first three postoperative days.

Conclusion

Undiagnosed SDB is highly prevalent among cardiac surgical patients. Clinical trajectories of individuals with severe SDB are described by a prolonged recovery of pulmonary function, delayed weaning and a pronounced inflammatory response after surgery. Screening for SDB might identify patients that are susceptible for a complicated postoperative course.

References

  1. Schiza, et al.: J Clin Sleep Med. 2012, 8: 21-26.

    PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Kaw, et al.: Br J Anaesth. 2012, 109: 897-906. 10.1093/bja/aes308

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Roggenbach, J., Tan, B., Von der Leyen, E. et al. Association of sleep disordered breathing with clinical trajectories in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Crit Care 17 (Suppl 2), P495 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12433

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12433

Keywords