Prevalence of sleep apnea syndrome with primary arterial hypertension in a cardiologic rehabilitation clinic

In a group of 132 randomly selected male patients with the admission diagnosis arterial hypertension in a cardiological rehabilitation clinic, nightly monitoring was performed with Mesam 4 with records of the metabolism laboratory values and sleep disturbances longitudinally. Desaturation indexes of > or = 10/h after manual correction for plausibility revealed a total prevalence of 27.3% in the case of breathing disturbances. The prevalence increased to 52% in the over 55 year-old patients with a Broca index of > or = 120% in comparison to merely 15.4% in standard weighted, comparable age group. No differences were found in the laboratory values. These results again show the frequent occurrence of the combination adiposity, hypertension, and sleep apnea syndrome which has often been missed previously in specialist rehabilitation clinics.