In this analysis of a large database of hospitalized patients, we confirmed that there is a high prevalence of undiagnosed sleep-disordered breathing. Furthermore, follow-up of these patients for a mean of 609 days demonstrated that those who were adherent to PAP therapy had a survival advantage in comparison with those who were non compliant. These findings add to the larger body of evidence that diagnosis
and treatment of sleep-disordered breathing with PAP therapy can reduce long-term mortality.
In our single-center database of more than 5000 patients, the estimated prevalence of undiagnosed sleep-disordered breathing was 18.7%. The true prevalence rate may be
even higher if there are patients who screened falsely negative. In contrast, recent estimates of the prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing in the community are much
higher with 83.8% of men found to have an AHI 5 in one study. It is likely that differences between our results and these general population estimates are related to
dissimilarities in population characteristics, methods of ascertainment, and definitions of sleep-disordered breathing. Irrespective of the true prevalence rate in hospitalized patients, it appears that there are large numbers of unrecognized sleep-disordered breathing patients in this population.
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