In total, 688 (70.8%) patients were diagnosed using laboratory-based polysomnography and 284 (29.2%) with home-based sleep studies. Patients completed questionnaires related to symptoms including sleepiness, insomnia, sleep disturbance, abnormal behaviors during sleep, upper airway symptoms, and other symptoms such as headaches and excessive sweating, wrote Brendan T. Keenan, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and his coauthors.
In the Icelandic group, results identified 72 (33.5%) patients in the disturbed-sleep cluster, 62 (28.8%) in the minimally symptomatic cluster, and 81 (37.7%) in the excessively sleepy cluster, similar to prior research. The three subtypes were found in the international sample of patients as well, with 150 (19.8%) in the disturbed-sleep cluster, 306 (40.4%) in the minimally symptomatic cluster, and 301 (39.8%) in the excessively sleepy cluster.
“Overall, this study provides a novel approach to better characterize patients with OSA presenting at sleep clinics worldwide,” wrote the authors of the second study. “This information can help inform personalized medicine approaches to OSA treatment by allowing clinicians to focus interventions on the most relevant OSA symptoms and consequences within an individual patient.”
Both studies were funded by the National Institutes of Health.
SOURCES: Pien GW et al. Sleep. 2018 Mar. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsx201; Keenan BT et al. Sleep. 2018 Mar. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsx214.