Boston College, William F. Connell School of Nursing, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA.
Sleep Med. 2009 Dec;10(10):1075-84. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2009.02.006. Epub 2009 Apr 28.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been historically described as a disease primarily of men. However, it is now widely recognized that OSA in women is not as rare as was originally believed. The alarming degree to which OSA is clinically underdiagnosed in women raises the critical concern that women manifest OSA differently. The purpose of this review is to examine the issue of clinically significant gender differences in OSA disease manifestation, which pose unique challenges to diagnosis and management. Within this review, current findings regarding gender differences in OSA polysomnographic features and demographic factors, symptom presentation, functional status, comorbidities, health care utilization, and therapeutic management have been reviewed. Further research in this field is proposed to examine the impact of gender on functional status in individuals with OSA, and the potential gender differences in therapeutic management, particularly the response to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment. Additional studies describing the clinical manifestations in men and women at different levels of OSA severity may substantially contribute to the ability to identify and treat OSA in women across a wide spectrum of disease severity.
阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停（OSA）在历史上被描述为一种主要发生在男性身上的疾病。然而，现在人们普遍认识到，女性的 OSA 并不像最初认为的那样罕见。OSA 在女性中的临床诊断率低得惊人，这引起了人们的严重关注，即女性的 OSA 表现方式不同。本综述的目的是探讨 OSA 临床表现中具有临床意义的性别差异问题，这对诊断和管理提出了独特的挑战。在本综述中，回顾了关于 OSA 多导睡眠图特征和人口统计学因素、症状表现、功能状态、合并症、医疗保健利用和治疗管理方面的性别差异的现有发现。建议在该领域进行进一步研究，以研究性别对 OSA 个体功能状态的影响，以及治疗管理方面的潜在性别差异，特别是对持续气道正压通气（CPAP）治疗的反应。描述不同 OSA 严重程度的男性和女性的临床表现的进一步研究，可能会大大有助于在广泛的疾病严重程度范围内识别和治疗女性的 OSA。
