The following is a summary of” Nocturnal Hypoxemia Associates With Symptom Progression and Mortality in Patients With Progressive Fibrotic Interstitial Lung Disease,” published in the November 2023 issue of Pulmonology by Myall et al.

OSA and nighttime hypoxemia (NH) happen a lot in people with fibrotic interstitial lung disease (F-ILD), but it is still not clear how they affect how well the disease does. What is the connection between NH, OSA, and how well people with F-ILD do in the hospital? Researchers sought to answer this question for a prospective observational group study of people with and without F-ILD who had low oxygen levels during the day. At the start, patients had a home sleep study, and they were watched for at least one year or until they died. 

Patients included in the study underwent baseline home sleep studies, and subsequent follow-up encompassed a minimum duration of 1 year or until the event of mortality. Nocturnal hypoxemia (NH) was defined as the presence of ≥10% sleep duration characterized by oxygen saturation levels below 90%. Additionally, the study utilized the definition of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), identifying cases where the apnea-hypopnea index reached ≥15 events per hour.

Out of the 102 people who took part (74.5% were men, the average age was 73.0 years, and the FVC was 2.74 ± 0.78 L. 91.1% of them had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis), 20 (19.6%) had prolonged NH and 32 (31.4%) had OSA. At the start, no big changes existed between those who had NH or OSA and those who did not.  Still, NH was linked to a faster drop in both the King’s Brief Interstitial Lung Disease questionnaire (change, –11.3 ± 5.3 points in the NH group vs. –6.7 ± 6.5 in those not having NH; P =.005) and a higher risk of death from any cause at 1 year (hazard ratio, 8.21; 95% CI, 2.40–28.1; P <.001). The yearly change in lung function test scores did not show a statistically significant difference between the groups. Long-term NH, but not OSA, is linked to a lower quality of life due to the disease and a higher risk of death in people with F-ILD.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012369223006694