Current evidence on prevalence and clinical outcomes of co-morbid obstructive sleep apnea and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A systematic review

• Published in: Sleep medicine reviews 2017-04, Vol.32, p.58-68
• Main Authors: Shawon, Md Shajedur R, Perret, Jennifer L, Senaratna, Chamara V, Lodge, Caroline, Hamilton, Garun S, Dharmage, Shyamali C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cardiovascular Diseases; Comorbidity; Humans; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Neurology; Polysomnography - methods; Prevalence; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive - epidemiology; Quality of Life; Sleep Apnea, Obstructive - epidemiology; Sleep Medicine
• ISSN: 1087-0792; 1532-2955; 1532-2955
• DOI: 10.1016/j.smrv.2016.02.007

Summary The objective of this systematic review is to synthesize the evidence on prevalence, polysomnographic findings and clinical outcomes of co-morbid obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – known as the “overlap syndrome”. We systematically searched PubMed on 1 December 2015 using appropriate medical subject headings (MeSH) and text words to capture prevalence studies and comparative studies of any observational design examining the clinical outcomes in patients with co-existent COPD and OSA. We reviewed 591 articles and included 27 in the final review. In total, 21 observational studies (n = 29,341 participants) provided prevalence estimates. Overlap syndrome is not common in the general and hospital population (range: 1.0–3.6%), but is highly prevalent in patients diagnosed with either obstructive sleep apnea (range: 7.6–55.7%) or COPD (range: 2.9–65.9%). Overlap syndrome patients have been shown to have greater nocturnal oxygen desaturation (NOD) (i.e., reduced mean peripheral capillary oxygen saturation (SpO2 ) and increased sleep time spent with SpO2