Severity of individual obstruction events increases with age in patients with obstructive sleep apnea

Background Age is a risk factor of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). It has been shown that OSA progresses over time, although conflicting results have been reported. However, the effect of age on the severity of OSA and individual obstruction events has not been investigated within different OSA severity categories by taking the most prominent confounding factors (i.e., body mass index, gender, smoking, daytime sleepiness, snoring, hypertension, heart failure, and proportion of supine sleep) into account. Methods Polygraphic data of 1090 patients with apnea–hypopnea index (AHI) ≥5 were retrospectively reanalyzed. The effect of age on the severity of OSA and obstruction events was investigated in general, within different OSA severity categories, and in different age groups (age
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