Sleep apnea may raise the risk of heart attack and stroke among people who have had medical procedures to open block arteries, according to a new study.
“Sleep-disordered breathing, which includes snoring and sleep apnea, has long been recognized as an important risk factor for heart disease. However, there is limited awareness of sleep-disordered breathing among cardiologists who care for PCI patients,” Toru Mazaki, who authored the recently published research in the Journal of the American Heart Association,
said in a news release.
PCI, or percutaneous coronary intervention, is also known as angioplasty and is performed by threading a catheter through the groin or wrist to reopen blocked arteries.
The study examined 241 PCI patients in Japan over a five year period. Among those with sleep-disordered breathing, 21.4 percent subsequently had major cardiovascular events such as death, stroke, recurrent acute coronary syndrome and hospital admission for heart failure. That compares to 7.8 percent of those without sleep-disordered breathing.
“Doctors and patients should consider sleep studies post-PCI to rule out sleep-disordered breathing or take necessary precautions to restore healthy breathing during sleep,” said Mazaki, who is chief physician of the Department of Cardiology at Kobe Central Hospital in Japan.
The study drew attention to the effects of sleep-disordered breathing, which has been associated with high blood pressure, elevated glucose and abnormal heart rhythms.
“Hopefully based on this study, doctors will pay more attention to their patient’s symptoms of fatigue or awakening from sleep,” Dr. Nieca Goldberg of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York
told Reuters.
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