New insights into the therapy and pathophysiology of patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of obstructive sleep apnoea on: (i) PaCO2 levels; (ii) coagulation systems (plasma fibrinogen levels and whole blood viscosity); and (iii) heat shock proteins (HSPs) levels, which are also called stress proteins, in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSAS). Patients treated with or without nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) had arterial blood gases, plasma fibrinogen, haematocrit, serum total protein and changes in PaCO2 (estimated by transcutaneous PaCO2) measured before and after polysomnography. Heat shock protein 72 levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells were also measured during sleep with and without NCPAP. OSAS patients with hypercapnia demonstrated significant increases in PaCO2 in the morning compared with the previous night. In such OSAS patients, treatment with NCPAP resulted in a normalization of the 20 mg/dL increase in fibrinogen levels which had been seen previously in the morning after sleep. Basal HSP 72 levels (08.00 pm before sleep) were high in OSAS patients compared to normal subjects and progressively decreased during sleep in the absence of NCPAP therapy. NCPAP relieved disabling day-to-day symptoms in addition to improving cardiovascular morbidity in patients with OSAS. Therefore it is important to understand the effects of OSAS on various organ systems as the prevalence of patients with OSAS is high.