Long term use of CPAP therapy improves asthma's outcome in patients with asthma and sleep apnoea

Background : Both asthma and obstructive sleep apnoea cause sleep disturbance, daytime sleepiness and worsen quality of life. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is efficient in reducing symptoms related to sleep apnoea. Here we report the impact of long term use of CPAP on asthma symptoms. Methods : A questionnaire survey was conducted during the year 2013 in all our CPAP patients. We used the Finnish version of the Asthma Control Test TM and a visual analogue scale (0 = no symptoms, 100 = severe asthma symptoms). Asthma was defined as self-reported physician-diagnosed disease and a special reimbursement for asthma medication by the Social Insurance Institution. Patients, whose asthma diagnosis was confirmed after the initiation of CPAP, were excluded. Results : We sent 2577 questionnaires and received 1586 answers (61%). Of them, 44 patients had no more CPAP therapy, 197 patients were asthmatics with a prevalence of asthma among CPAP users of 13%. We studied 192 patients (72 females) whose CPAP therapy was initiated after starting asthma medication. Their mean ± SD age was 63 ± 10 years, duration of CPAP 72 ± 59 months and their CPAP daily use was 6.9 ± 1.7 hours/day. View this table: Charachteristics of 192 asthmatics at baseline and with CPAP therapy Conclusions : We noticed a significant decrease in asthma symptoms with the long term use of CPAP in patients with both asthma and sleep apnoea.