Determining Cardiac Output by Carbon Dioxide Rebreathing in Patients With Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome

The objective of the present study was to determine the relation between resting cardiac output in patients with sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome but without arterial hypertension or heart failure as measured indirectly by the carbon dioxide rebreathing method and left ventricular function evaluated by transthoracic echocardiography. We also compared the variability and reproducibility of the measurements obtained by the equilibrium and exponential methods. In patients with sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome there was a modest but significant association between resting cardiac output and left ventricular shortening fraction (r=0.690; P=.001) and left ventricular ejection fraction (r=0.690; P=.001). In addition, mean (SD) cardiac output obtained by the equilibrium method showed a lower coefficient of variability (0.21 [0.08]) than that of the exponential method (0.16 [0.09]) (P