Abstract

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a public health hazard. Cardiovascular morbidity is the most influenced on OSA patient’s prognosis. The systematic coronary risk evaluation (SCORE) model predicts ten-year risk of cardiovascular mortality.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between the severity of OSA and SCORE risk.

To examine which SCORE components are the most important in OSA patients.
Methods: Data of 190 OSA patients diagnosed with full polysomnography (PSG) in accordance with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommendations were collected in  PSG research data integration system. SCORE risk value was assessed and its all components analyzed according to the recommendation of the European Society of Cardiology. Additionally the severity of the disease was assessed by Clinical Global Impression-severity score (CGI-S).
 Results Most OSA patients had the highest SCORE risk, i.e. 65% of the group studied had high and very high SCORE risk. The most important components influencing SCORE were age and smoking status. The value of AHI correlated positively with the value of SCORE (r = 0,2; p =0,008), especially in men. The ODI value correlated positively with the SCORE value (r = 0,2; p =0,029), especially in women. There was also a positive correlation between the SCORE value and CGI-S (r = 0,3; p =0,0002).

Conclusions:  Most OSA patients have at least a high SCORE and it correlates not only with objective parameters like AHI and ODI but also with subjective assessment of disease severity measured by CGI-S. The most important factors affecting the 10-year risk of death for cardiovascular reasons are age and smoking.