Novel oxygen desaturation parameters are associated with cardiac troponin I

Fjola Sigurdardottir and colleagues recently published a paper looking at different cardiac troponins and their association with oxygen saturation in obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) patients, “Novel oxygen desaturation parameters are associated with cardiac troponin I: Data from the Akershus Sleep Apnea Project”. Dr. Kate Porcheret from the ESRS’s Digital & Communications Committee sat with her to discuss their work further. 

This paper was born out of an interest to look at novel desaturation parameters, as more (and better) parameters of OSA are needed to predict adverse outcomes. 

Cardiac troponins are sensitive and specific markers of myocardial injury and were used as a surrogate endpoint to look at the association between novel desaturation parameters and cardiac troponins, and seeing whether these new desaturation parameters for OSA were any better than the apnoea-hypoxia index (AHI) in predicting higher subclinical myocardial injury.  

Using data from the Akershus Sleep Apnoea Project, 498 participants who had valid sleep measurements, and/or cardiac troponin measurements were included in the current study.  

Looking at the re-scored polysomnography’s for novel desaturation parameters was done first, to determine whether the new obstructive sleep apnoea parameters were associated with cardiac troponins because it is known from previous studies that there have been reported associations between apnoea-hypopnea index and cardiac troponins. 

Secondly, they wanted to compare these novel parameters with the apnoea-hypopnea index to see if there was any difference in how well they predicted higher subclinical myocardial injury. 

To find out more on the results of the study, watch the entire interview below and read the entire publication here.