Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Use in Asthma With Moderate to Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and asthma are both common disorders in Hong Kong, with prevalence of at least 4% among the middle-aged male Hong Kong (HK) Chinese populations and 7.2% in young adults respectively. OSAS is characterized by repetitive episodes of upper airway obstruction, causing intermittent hypoxia, sleep fragmentation, disabling daytime sleepiness, impaired cognitive function and poor health status. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is the first line of therapy for sleep apnea. CPAP provides a pneumatic stent for the upper airway, eliminating the airway collapse during inspiration. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of airways, characterized by airway hyperresponsiveness that leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathless, chest tightness, and coughing, particularly at night or in the early morning. Nocturnal asthma is not a different condition from asthma and is defined as a variable worsening of asthma at night, in which the mechanisms are not completely understood. The prevalence of OSAS in asthmatic patients has not yet been studied, but several studies have reported an increased prevalence of OSAS symptoms in asthmatic patients. OSAS and asthma share some common risk factors, which include obesity, gastroesophageal reflux and rhinitis. CPAP treatment has been shown in prospective clinical studies to have a positive impact on asthma outcome in patients with concomitant OSAS, for example, improvement of asthma related quality of life in subjects with stable mild-to-moderate asthma, but there was no change in the airway responsiveness or forced expiratory volume in one second. Although important, these studies included small numbers of participants used nonrandomized designs. This study is to assess the impact of CPAP treatment on asthma control among patients with nocturnal symptoms and moderate OSAS.