Obstructive Sleep Apnoea in Pakistan: A Single Tertiary Care Center Experience

Considerable interest has been shown in the field of sleep medicine in recent decades. Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a common condition that remains neglected in most parts of the world. Data are scarce, if any, when it comes to developing countries. We sought to describe the patient population in a single private tertiary care center from such a country.

A cross-sectional study that included a total of 203 patients over a five-year period was conducted. Polysomnographic studies were conducted in a dedicated sleep laboratory, under the supervision of sleep physicians. Data were described and analyzed based on clinical and self-reported outcomes, as well as polysomnographic characteristics, and compared them between genders and severity.

With the participants having an average age of 50.84 years and a BMI of 34.7 kg/m², the study found that the increase in age and BMI was significantly correlated with an increase in the severity of obstructive sleep apnea in the Pakistani population. There was a significant difference in sleep latency (20.6 min in women vs. 10.8 min in men; p-value = 0.001) and efficiency (63.7% in women vs. 69.8 in men; p-value = 0.02) between the two genders. Decreases in nadir saturation, total sleep time, and sleep latency were also associated with an increase in the level of severity.

There is a dire need for Pakistani, and in extension Asian, medical professionals to ramp up their pace to meet the needs of their population with regard to sleep medicine.