Disrupted sleep breathing linked to poorer outcomes during dialysis
Observational studies linked sleep-disordered breathing with death and major cardiovascular events in dialysis patients. Whether treatment improves these outcomes remains unresolved.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Adults receiving dialysis who had sleep-disordered breathing had higher hazards of death and major cardiovascular events in pooled observational studies. These associations do not establish that breathing disruption caused either outcome. The abstract also does not show whether screening for or treating sleep-disordered breathing improves survival or cardiovascular health.
All included studies were observational. The abstract reports neither follow-up durations nor absolute event risks, and associations differed by region and how sleep-disordered breathing was identified.
What researchers found
Death from any cause
With versus without sleep-disordered breathing: 1.79 times the death rate at a given time among those still alive, a relative hazard rather than an absolute risk. Follow-up duration: Not reported in the abstract.
Reading the hazard ratio
The primary endpoint was death from any cause; major cardiovascular events were assessed separately. A hazard ratio compares event rates over follow-up and does not give an individual's probability of dying.
Differences across studies
Studies used sleep testing, oxygen measurements or diagnostic codes to identify breathing problems, and association sizes differed across these methods. This variation matters when assessing how consistent the overall finding was.
The original publication
Prognostic impact of sleep-disordered breathing on mortality and cardiovascular events in renal dialysis: A meta-analysis.
Hao T, Shen Y, Lu X
Biomol Biomed · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41075296
- Record checked
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