Objective. To investigate if different treatment strategy of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) was associated glaucoma risk in Taiwanese population.

Methods

Population-based retrospective cohort study was conducted using data sourced from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000. We included 2528 OSA patients and randomly selected and matched 10112 subjects without OSA as the control cohort. The risk of glaucoma in OSA patients was investigated based on the managements of OSA (without treatment, with surgery, with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment, and with multiple modalities). The multivariable Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratio (HR) after adjusting for sex, age, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and coronary artery disease.

Results

The adjusted HR of glaucoma for OSA patients was 1.88 (95% CI: 1.46–2.42), compared with controls. For patients without treatment, the adjusted HR was 2.15 (95% CI: 1.60–2.88). For patients with treatments, the adjusted HRs of glaucoma were not significantly different from controls, except for those with CPAP (adjusted HR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.09–2.49).

Conclusions

OSA is associated with an increased risk of glaucoma. However, surgery reduces slightly the glaucoma hazard for OSA patients.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by total or partial obstruction of the upper airway, which leads to impaired sleep, autonomic dysfunction, and transient nighttime hypoxemia.

OSA is a common disease, affecting approximately 2% of women and 4% of men residing in western communities [17]. In one recent review article, the authors highlight the lack of data regarding the prevalence of OSA in Asians [17]. They reported that OSA prevalence ranged from 3.7% to 97.3%. Two studies from Taiwan were reviewed; and both two used the method of modified questionnaire via telephone interviewing [18, 19]. In Liu et al.’s study, they found the prevalence of snoring among males was higher than females (57% versus 37%, ). In addition, adults aged 40–59 years were more likely to snore () [3]. In another study proposed by Chuang et al. [19], they reported that 51.9% (95% CI 51.13%–52.67%) of Taiwanese snore and 2.6% (95% CI 2.1%–3.1%) have witnessed apnea. Although the findings in the above two studies are interesting, it is difficult to directly compare our current result to those two because of different study design and sample size. The definition of OSA in the two studies was not based on PSG exam but on symptomatology.

Authors: Hsin-Yi Chen, [1,2] Yue-Cune Chang, [3] Che-Chen Lin, [4] Fung-Chang Sung, [4,5] and Wen-Chi Chen [1,6]

1. Graduate Institute of Clinical Medical Science, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan
2. Department of Ophthalmology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 404, Taiwan
3. Department of Mathematics, Tamkang University, New Taipei City 25137, Taiwan
4. Management Office for Health Data, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 404, Taiwan
5. Department of Public Health, China Medical University, Taichung 404, Taiwan
6. Department of Urology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung 404, Taiwan

Oryginal text taken from: Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients Having Surgery Are Less Associated with Glaucoma

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Copyright © 2014 Hsin-Yi Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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References & External links

1. Eco Supplements: "Snore".
2. Snore Stop Info (SnoreBlock™, Obstructive sleep apnea): SnoreBlock ™ – Snore Stop!.