Effects of continuous positive airway pressure and isocapnic‐hypoxia on cerebral autoregulation in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea

摘要

Key points class="unordered" style="list-style-type:disc" id="tjp12024-list-0001">Altered cerebral autoregulation (CA) in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) patients may contribute to increased stroke risk in this population; the gold standard treatment for OSA is continuous positive airway pressure, which improves cerebrovascular regulation and may decrease the risk of stroke.Isocapnic‐hypoxia impairs CA in healthy subjects, but it remains unknown in OSA whether impaired CA is further exacerbated by isocapnic‐hypoxia and whether it is improved by treatment with continuous positive airway pressure.During normoxia, CA was altered in the more severe but not in the less severe OSA patients, while, in contrast, during isocapnic‐hypoxia, CA was similar between groups and tended to improve in patients with more severe OSA compared to normoxia.From a clinical perspective, one month of continuous positive airway pressure treatment does not improve CA.From a physiological perspective, this study suggests that sympathetic overactivity may be responsible for altered CA in the more severe OSA patients.