BACKGROUND:

There are several publications reported that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) was associated with asthma. However, large-scaled, population-based cohort study has been limited. We aimed to examine the risk of OSA among adult patients with asthma in an Asian population.

METHODS:

We conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from the National Health Insurance (NHI) of Taiwan. The asthma cohort included 38,840 newly diagnosed patients between 2000 and 2010. The date of diagnosis was defined as the index date. Each patient was randomly matched with four people without asthma according to gender, age, and the index year as the comparison cohort. The occurrence of OSA was followed up until the end of 2011. The risk of OSA was estimated using the Cox proportional hazard model after adjusting for gender, age, and comorbidities.

RESULTS:

The overall incidence of OSA was 2.51-fold greater in the asthma cohort than in the comparison cohort (12.1 versus 4.84 per 1000 person-years). Compared to non-asthma subjects, the adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of OSA increased to 1.78 for asthma patients with one or less annual emergency room (ER) visit, and 23.8 for those who visited ER more than once per year. In addition, aHR in patients with inhaled steroid treatment compared to those without steroid treatment was 1.33 (95% CI = 1.01-1.76).

CONCLUSION:

Patients with asthma have a significantly higher risk of developing OSA than the general population. The results suggest that the risk of OSA is proportional to asthma control and patients with inhaled steroid treatment have a higher risk for OSA than those without steroid treatment.