Department of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Disorders Center, Aichi Medical University Hospital, 1-1 Nagakute, Aichi 4801195, Japan.
Biostatistics Center, Graduate School of Medicine, Kurume University, 67 Asahimachi, Kurume, Fukuoka 8300011, Japan.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Mar 25;16(6):1068. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16061068.
Rapid eye movement (REM)-related obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by apnea and hypopnea events due to airway collapse occurring predominantly or exclusively during REM sleep. Previous studies have reported that REM-related OSA occurs more commonly in women and younger individuals. However, external validity of this tendency has not been confirmed in a large clinical sample. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of gender and age on REM-related OSA after adjustment for several covariates based on their established clinical relationships to gender difference in OSA. A total of 3234 Japanese patients with OSA were enrolled in this study. We confirmed that female sex is an important risk factor for REM-related OSA, as reported by previous studies. Moreover, we showed that women aged over 50 years were at a greater risk than those aged under 50 years. These results suggest that hormonal changes in women might play an important role in REM-related OSA and might reflect its unknown pathophysiological characteristics.
快速眼动(REM)相关阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停(OSA)的特征是由于气道塌陷导致的呼吸暂停和呼吸不足事件,主要或仅在 REM 睡眠期间发生。先前的研究报告称,REM 相关 OSA 在女性和年轻人群中更为常见。然而,在大型临床样本中,这种趋势的外部有效性尚未得到证实。本研究的目的是评估性别和年龄对 REM 相关 OSA 的影响,同时根据与 OSA 性别差异相关的既定临床关系,对几个协变量进行调整。共有 3234 名日本 OSA 患者纳入本研究。我们证实,正如先前研究报告的那样,女性是 REM 相关 OSA 的重要危险因素。此外,我们还表明,50 岁以上的女性比 50 岁以下的女性风险更大。这些结果表明,女性的激素变化可能在 REM 相关 OSA 中发挥重要作用,并可能反映其未知的病理生理特征。