Chest
Clinical InvestigationsEffect of Intranasal Obstruction on Breathing during Sleep
Section snippets
Subjects
We studied eight normal male volunteers during sleep and eight during wakefulness after obtaining written informed consent. Seven of the eight subjects studied during wakefulness were different individuals than those studied during sleep. None of the subjects was obese or complained of difficulty in sleeping as determined from a standardized sleep questionnaire. Anthropomorphic characteristics of subjects are listed in Table 1.
Intranasal occlusion was accomplished by inserting strips of gauze
RESULTS
On the unoccluded night, all subjects had a few apneas or hypopneas, and one each had 10.8 and 14 apneas plus hypopneas per hour (Fig 1). Intranasal occlusion significantly increased the hourly rate of apneas, of hypopneas, and of apneas plus hypopneas, as well as the mean duration of apneas and hypopneas (Figure 1, Figure 2) (p<0.05). Intranasal occlusion had no significant effect on the desaturations per hour or the average desaturation, although the desaturation per hour increased in five of
DISCUSSION
This study demonstrates that intranasal occlusion in normal volunteers markedly increases the number of obstructive apneas and hypopneas during sleep. The number of central events also increased but only slightly. While oxyhemoglobin saturation decreased slightly during the episodes, the decreases were not significant. Intranasal occlusion produced no immediate change in spirometric data, Raw, or oxyhemoglobin saturation. The subject who developed the most apneas following nasal occlusion had
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Sponsored by grants HL 30218 and RR 00847 from the National Institutes of Health.
Manuscript received January 24; revision accepted March 27.