OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of sildenafil on the autonomic nervous system in patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea. METHODS Thirteen male patients with severe obstructive sleep apnea (mean age 43+/-10 years with a mean body mass index of 26.7+/-1.9 kg/m(2)) received a single 50-mg dose of sildenafil or a placebo at bedtime. All-night polysomnography and heart rate variability wer...

Central sleep apnea (CSA) describes a group of conditions in which cessations in air flow occur without respiratory effort. In contrast, obstructive sleep apnea patients have ongoing respiratory effort during respiratory events. However, considerable overlap exists in the pathogenesis and clinical presentation of obstructive sleep apnea and CSA. A good working knowledge of the mechanisms underl...

background and objective: obstructive sleep apnea (osa) is a disease with serious consequences. many portable devices have been developed to overwhelm some of limitations in the accessibility of the gold standard test for osa, polysomnography (psg). this study aimed to determine diagnostic accuracy of a portable sleep apnea screener against psg in patients of a sleep clinic. materials and metho...

Ten patients with autonomic nervous system dysfunction (familial dysautonomia, juvenile diabetes, or Shy-Drager syndrome) were studied to assess the impact of their impairment on breathing during sleep. Several types of breathing dysfunction during sleep were identified independent of the patients' primary complaints. Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome was the most common; central sleep apnea and...

Determining the etiology of an event arguably holds greater relevance to the patient’s diagnosis than simply tabulating numbers and measuring event duration. It might be suggested that the term “central” is somewhat vague, and that a more meaningful way to describe an event is whether or not it is associated with a closed airway. Examining respiratory tracings alone is insufficient for this pur...

OBJECTIVE This study was conducted to investigate the sleep symptoms and polysomnographic patterns of obstructive sleep apnea in overweight and obese children. MATERIALS & METHODS Overweight or obese children aging 6-18 yr old referred during 2010 to Endocrinology Clinic of Ghods Hospital in Ghazvin, central Iran were enrolled in the study. Polysomnography was done for the diagnosis of obstru...

BACKGROUND Central sleep apnea is associated with poor prognosis and death in patients with heart failure. Adaptive servo-ventilation is a therapy that uses a noninvasive ventilator to treat central sleep apnea by delivering servo-controlled inspiratory pressure support on top of expiratory positive airway pressure. We investigated the effects of adaptive servo-ventilation in patients who had h...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and shares many of the same risk factors as another common clinical condition, sleep apnea. The estimated prevalence of sleep apnea has increased over the past decade, and reflects a parallel increase in the most prominent risk factors of obesity and overweight. Both obstructive and central sleep apnea have been associated with AF i...

We describe the case of a short-statured 12-yr-old boy who developed a Chiari type 1 malformation associated with central sleep apnea after administration of high-dose GH therapy, which he had been receiving since the age of 10 yr and 4 mo. He responded well to GH therapy, and his height increased by 18.8 cm in 2 yr. At 12 yr and 4 mo of age, his mother reported that he had developed sleep apne...