BALTIMORE — Two measures of lung function—a higher forced expiratory volume in 1 second/forced vital capacity ratio and lower total lung capacity—may predict the presence of obstructive sleep apnea in chronic pulmonary disease patients, according to a poster presented at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies
Dr. Ramez Sunna and colleagues at the University of Missouri, Columbia, reviewed all adult patients who underwent both pulmonary function testing and polysomnography between 2000 and 2007 at a tertiary care medical center.
Overall, 279 patients (61%) met the criteria for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), 167 patients (37%) met the criteria for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and 11 patients (2%) did not have either condition.
A total of 101 patients (60%) had both COPD and OSA, but there was no significant correlation between the severity of the COPD and the severity of the OSA.
But the researchers analyzed the COPD patients independently and found that those with both COPD and OSA had a significantly higher forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) ratio, compared with COPD patients without OSA (61.03% vs. 54.61%), although both of these values fell below healthy levels. The association remained significant after controlling for variables.