Obesity-hypoventilation syndrome carries an increased risk of death over sleep apnea syndrome

Aim: To study whether mortality and cardiovascular morbidity differs in non-invasive ventilation (NIV)-treated patients with severe obesity-hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) as compared with CPAP-treated patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), and to identify the independent predictors of mortality in a cohort of NIV-treated OHS subjects. Material and methods: Two retrospective cohorts of OHS and OSAS were matched 1:2 according to gender, age (±10 year) and length of time since initiation of CPAP/NIV therapy (±6 months). Results: Three hundred and thirty subjects (110 patients with OHS and 220 patients with OSAS; 43.6% women; mean age 64 ± 21 yr) were included in the study.Mean follow-up time was 7±4 years (range: 1-15 years). The five year mortality rates were 15.5% in OHS cohort and 4.5% in OSAS cohort (p Conclusion: The mortality of severe OHS patients is high and substantially worse than that of OSAS subjects. Severe OHS should be considered a systemic disease that encompasses respiratory, metabolic and cardiovascular components that require a multimodal therapeutic approach.