Effects of acetazolamide on sleep disordered breathing in pulmonary vascular disease: a randomised controlled trial.

Background

Patients with pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) often suffer from nocturnal hypoxaemia, but also from sleep apnoea. Short-term use of acetazolamide increases ventilation due to metabolic acidosis and also reduces loop gain. We investigated whether prolonged use of acetazolamide improves sleep disordered breathing in PVD.

Methods

In a randomised controlled crossover trial, patients with PVD were randomly assigned to acetazolamide 250 mg and placebo twice daily for 5 weeks. Patients underwent respiratory polygraphy at baseline and at the end of each intervention phase. Outcomes of interest were the effect of acetazolamide on mean nocturnal oxygen saturation (

Results

In 20 patients with PVD (55% women, nine with pulmonary arterial hypertension, 11 with distal chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension; mean±sd nocturnal

Conclusions

Acetazolamide given for 5 weeks reduces nocturnal hypoxaemia in PVD to a clinically relevant level and reduces the proportion of patients with obstructive sleep apnoea.

Informations de copyright

Copyright ©The authors 2024.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Conflicts of interest: M. Lichtblau reports being early career member of European Respiratory Society (ERS) Assembly 13 (Pulmonary Vascular Disease), outside the submitted work. K.E. Bloch reports support for the present manuscript from the Swiss National Science Foundation. S. Ulrich reports support for the present manuscript from the Swiss National Science Foundation and is Chair of ERS Group 13.01 (Pulmonary Hypertension), outside the submitted work. The remaining authors have nothing to disclose.