Abstract
Background: Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is a common sleep-disordered breathing that adversely affects health and quality of life, manifested by intermittent dyspnea during for 10 seconds or more, resulting in a decrease in blood oxygen levels, followed by a return of respiratory activity often with brief awakening. This syndrome causes many dangers to the cardiovascular, nervous and respiratory systems. However, follow-up is often missed and when it is detected, sleep apnea syndrome has had serious complications. According to statistics, about one-third to one-half of 5 million heart failure patients in the US have sleep apnea syndrome, nearly 2.2 times the risk of heart failure compared to people without this syndrome. In Vietnam, there are currently no studies on this syndrome. Objectives: To describe the clinical and subclinical characteristics of sleep apnea syndrome in patients with heart failure. Evaluate the correlation between AHI index with ejection fraction, Epworth score and severity of heart failure according to NYHA. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study on 25 patients with heart failure with sleep apnea syndrome was controlled with a control group of 14 heart failure patients without sleep apnea at Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy hospital are classified after taking respiratory polygraph. Results: Divided into 2 groups: heart failure with sleep apnea syndrome (called SAS group (+)) and heart failure without sleep apnea syndrome (called SAS group (-)). In the SAS group (+), there are often symptoms of loud snoring (84%) and waking up while sleeping (80%); The Epworth scale in the SAS group (+) 10.64 ± 1.41 is higher than the SAS group (-) 9.07 ± 0.92; There were some positive correlations between the AHI index and the Epworth scale (r = 0.714, p<0.05). Conclusion: Screening for sleep apnea syndrome in patients with heart failure is essential, this helps to identify risk factors to reduce disease progression as well as prevent possible cardiovascular complications and improve outcomes.