[A long-term follow-up of the correlation between obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome and multiple organ diseases].

OBJECTIVE

To explore the correlation between obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) and multiple organ diseases.

METHODS

Home-visit questionnaires were performed in 1 868 subjects (956 male, 912 female) with an average age of (79 ± 5) years, and a prospective follow-up was performed for a period of 20 years with annual medical examinations. Multiple organ diseases included hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, pulmonary heart disease, renal insufficiency and erythrocytosis. The subjects were grouped by the diagnosis of OSAHS.

RESULTS

Among the 1 868 subjects, 598 (32.0%) were diagnosed with OSAHS, and 1 270 (68.0%) of non-OSAHS as the control group. By the end of follow-up, in the OSAHS group there were 477 (79.8%) cases with hypertension, 337 (56.4%) cases with coronary heart disease, 167 (27.9%) cases with stroke, 76 (12.7%) cases with diabetes, 37 (6.2%) cases with pulmonary heart disease, 73 (12.2%) cases with renal insufficiency and 211(35.3%) cases with erythrocytosis, all of which were significantly higher than those of the control group [323(25.4%), 315 (24.8%), 95 (7.5%), 69 (5.4%), 40 (3.2%), 58 (4.6%), 30 (2.4%), P < 0.01]. The number of diseases in the OSAHS group was also higher than that in the control group (P < 0.05) .

CONCLUSION

The incidence of multiple organ diseases was remarkably higher in the OSAHS group than that in the control group, which indicated that OSAHS was a risk factor for multiple organ diseases. These diseases in OSAHS patients may be related to hypoxia caused by OSAHS, endocrine and metabolic disorders, unhealthy lifestyles and arteriosclerosis.