Polysomnographic markers of obstructive sleep apnea severity and cancer-related mortality: a large retrospective multicenter clinical cohort study

Rationale — The evidence for an association between cancer survival and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) remains under-explored.

Objectives — To evaluate an association between markers of OSA severity (respiratory disturbances, hypoxemia, and sleep fragmentation) and cancer-related mortality in individuals with previously diagnosed cancer.

Methods — We conducted a multicenter retrospective cohort study using linked clinical and provincial health administrative data on consecutive adults who underwent a diagnostic sleep study between 1994 and 2017 in four Canadian academic hospitals and were previously diagnosed with cancer through the Ontario Cancer Registry. Multivariable cause-specific Cox regressions were utilized to address the research objective.

Results — We included 2,222 subjects. Over a median follow-up time of 5.6 years (IQR: 2.7-9.1), 261/2,222 (11.7%) individuals with prevalent cancer died from cancer-related causes, which accounted for 44.2% (261/590) of all-cause death. Controlling for age, sex, alcohol use disorder, prior heart failure, COPD, hypertension, diabetes, treatment for OSA, clinic site, year of the sleep study, and time since the cancer diagnosis, measures of hypoxemia and sleep fragmentation, but not apnea-hypopnea index were significantly associated with the cancer-specific mortality: % time spent with SaO2 <90% (HR per 5% increase: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01-1.09); mean SaO2 (HR per 3% increase: 0.79; 0.68-0.92); and % of Stage 1 Sleep (HR per 16% increase: 1.27; 1.07-1.51).

Conclusion — In a large clinical cohort of adults with suspected OSA and previously diagnosed cancer, measures of nocturnal hypoxemia and sleep fragmentation as markers of OSA severity were significantly associated with cancer-related mortality, suggesting the need for more targeted risk awareness.