Home Monitoring of Sleep Apnea Treatment: Benefits of Intelligent CPAP Devices

Obstructive sleep apneea syndrome is highly prevalent in adult population and increases cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) remains the treatment of choice for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). Automatic CPAP (APAP) can be use, not only for treatment but also for suggesting the optimum CPAP setting. Ninety-five newly diagnosed patients were included (mean age 51 plusmn 9.6 years) with moderate and severe obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. The patients were randomly allocated to one of the investigated devices: APAP or fixed pressure CPAP. A lower mean effective pressure seen in AUTO group 7.67 cm H2O vs CPAP 8.51 cm H2O (CI 95% 0.08 - 1.6, p = 0.03) and CPAP patients presented statistically significant lower residual AHI (mean difference 1.6, CI 95% 0.7 - 2.5, p = 0.001). As a conclusion the AUTO approach seems to be similarly effective as CPAP and provide a method for determining a single fixed pressure, suitable for long term treatment with a conventional CPAP device.