[Cardio-respiratory complications of sleep apnea in obese patients]

The cardio-respiratory complications of sleep apnea syndrome have been prospectively assessed in 60 patients with massive obesity and free of chronic obstructive lung disease while the associated cardiovascular diseases and the alterations of pulmonary function were taken into account. These cardio-respiratory complications were observed only in patients with a number of apneas per hour of sleep greater than 20. The sleep apneas induced nocturnal hypoxemia that is frequently severe and independently correlated to the apnea index, diurnal hypoxemia and hypercapnia that are usually moderate, and presumably left ventricular hypertrophy that is not related to the development of daytime hypertension. However the nocturnal apneas were not associated with the development of an impairment of right or left ventricular function, or with the occurrence of cardiac arrhythmias or conduction disturbances. The absence of severe cardiac complications in this study may be related to the fact that the patients were relatively young and that the sleep apnea syndrome was diagnosed at an early stage of evolution. The findings of this study could help to define a more rationale approach in several therapeutic indications of sleep apnea syndrome.