July 2007

Section Input Drives AARC Congress
The 2007 AARC International Respiratory Congress may still be several months away – this December 1-4 in Orlando, FL – but it’s not too soon to begin making plans to attend. And as a Specialty Section member, you have even more reason to register for the meeting, because much of what you’ll see on the Final Program will have come directly from your peers. Every year the sections recommend topics for the Congress, and most end up on the agenda, in the form of lectures and symposia geared directly to your special interests and concerns. LEARN MORE

Successful CPAP Treatment Linked to Improvements in OSA, Depressive Symptoms
CPAP is known to be an effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), but compliance with the therapy can be a problem. Researchers publishing in the June issue of Psychosomatic Medicine studied 54 OSA patients to uncover possible reasons for noncompliance. All the patients underwent the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the functional outcomes of sleep questionnaire (FOSQ) before polysomnographic evaluation and one to two months after treatment with CPAP began. While baseline depressive symptoms were not correlated with CPAP use per night, improvements in OSA symptoms were linked to compliance with the therapy. Significant positive correlations were seen between improvements in both OSA and depressive symptoms and compliance with CPAP. READ ABSTRACT

Study Looks at PTT Oscillations in Sleeping Child
A new study out of Singapore looks at a model to describe the pulse transit time (PTT) oscillations of a sleeping child during tidal breathing and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The research was conducted among 20 children who were recruited for overnight polysomnography and used a modified windkessel model with related physiological parameters to describe PTT fluctuations due to the cardiovascular system during sleep. PSG data showed similar trends with the model for both tidal breathing and OSA. For tidal breathing, undamped PTT oscillations of 3.89s were predicted by the model while actual data yielded a mean value of 3.72+/-0.79s. Under-damping PTT responses were expected based on the model for OSA, with the model estimating a Q factor of 4.23. Actual mean data were 3.86+/-0.64. “Hence, the findings herein suggest that the proposed model has the potential to illustrate tidal breathing and OSA events in sleeping children,” report the authors. The research was published in the June 6 Epub edition of the Journal of Biomechanics. READ ABSTRACT

Adenotonsillectomy Helps OSA in Obese Kids, But OSA Persists in Many
Adenotonsillectomy can markedly improve obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in both obese and normal-weight children, but most obese kids will continue to have persistent OSA even after the surgery, report researchers from Saint Louis University School of Medicine who studied 33 obese children and 39 normal-weight children. All underwent polysomnography before and after having the surgery. The median apnea-hypopnea index went from 17.1 to 1.9 for normal-weight children and from 23.4 to 3.1 for obese children. However, three-quarters of the obese children continued to have persistent OSA, versus about a quarter of the normal-weight children. The study appears in this month’s Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery. READ ABSTRACT

New Report Grades Evidence on OSA Diagnosis and Treatment
A new report in the July-August issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine ranks the scientific evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Researchers find:

• Strong evidence for the association of adult OSA with obesity, daytime sleepiness, hypertension, and motor vehicular accidents.
• Strong evidence for requiring full-night or split-night attended polysomnography (PSG) for the diagnosis and treatment of adult OSA and for patients with systolic or diastolic heart failure not responding to optimal medical management.
• Good evidence for the association of adult OSA with congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, cerebral vascular accidents, metabolic syndrome, and increased mortality.
• Good evidence to indicate that the nonattended PSG can be used to diagnose sleep breathing disorders, that autotitration systems can be used to titrate continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, and that the multiple sleep latency test can be used in the assessment of daytime sleepiness.

READ ABSTRACT