Occurrence of Arterial Hypertension in Patients with sleep Apnoea Syndrome

Introduction: Sleep apnoea syndrome (SAS) is a serious under-diagnosed chronic disease, which often coincides with arterial hypertension (AH). The U.S. Joint National Committee considers SAS to be the most common cause of secondary arterial hypertension. Objective: To determine the incidence of arterial hypertension in patients diagnosed with SAS in an accredited sleep laboratory (ASL) in Bratislava in the years 2013-2022. Methods: The monitored group consisted of 688 patients examined in an ASL in Bratislava who underwent an initial examination (anamnesis, anthropometry, sleep questionnaire) and a diagnosis of sleep-disordered breathing (nocturnal polysomnography) in order to confirm or refute the diagnosis of OSAS. Data collection also took place by using a copy of the patients’ medical records (presence of AH). We used Microsoft Excel and statistical software SPSS, version 21.0 to process the obtained data. We considered the result to be statistically significant if p ≤ 0.05. Results: We demonstrated a statistically significant difference in the incidence of AH in patients with SAS compared to patients without SAS, i.e., there was a statistically significantly higher incidence of AH in patients with SAS compared to patients without SAS (39% vs. 17.5%; OR=3.0; p<0.001). We also demonstrated that the higher the AHI value in patients with SAS, the higher the incidence of AH (p=0.002; 95% CI 1.4 – 4.4). In addition, there was a 1.9 times higher risk of developing AH in patients with a moderate degree of SAS compared to patients with a mild degree of SAS (p=0.014) and up to a 2.8 times higher risk of developing AH in patients with a severe degree of SAS compared to patients with moderate SAS (p<0.001) regardless of BMI. Conclusion: Due to the high coincidence (1/3) of arterial hypertension and sleep apnoea syndrome in the monitored group, it is necessary to focus on effective screening of SAS in high-risk persons as well as effective screening of SAS in persons with present AH.