Original Papers
Sleep-disordered breathing in male subjects with a history of nose-throat surgery
Dan Teculescu, Lahoucine BenamgharSleep-disordered breathing in male subjects with a history of nose-throat surgery
The question addressed in this study was: could a history of nose-throat surgery represent a risk factor for sleep-disordered breathing? Three hundred and fifty French male employees answered a sleep / respiration questionnaire and had anthropometric measurements. A history of nose and/or throat surgery-mostly tonsillectomy or tonsillectomy plus adenoïdectomy- was given by 69 (19.7%) of the subjects (“at risk” group). The prevalence of snoring, breathing pauses during sleep or grasping was similar in “at risk” and control (no history) subjects, but the prevalence of two symptoms: excessive daytime sleepiness and “waking up with headaches”, was significantly higher in the group at risk. The present results suggest the persistence of minor (residual?) airway obstruction in subjects with a history of nose/throat surgery. This obstruction could be responsible for an alteration of declared sleep quality, although not severe enough for eliciting breathing pauses.
Keywords: nose-throat surgery, sleep disordered breathing, daytime sleepiness, morning headache
Sleep-disordered breathing in male subjects with a history of nose-throat surgeryElevated red blood cell distribution width predicts mortality in acute exacerbation of COPD
Shaghayegh Rahimirad, Mohammad Reza Ghafari, Khalil Ansarin, Farid Rashidi, Mohammad Hossein Rahimi-RadElevated red blood cell distribution width predicts mortality in acute exacerbation of COPD
Objective: Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) has been shown to predict clinical outcomes in many diseases. To our knowledge, the prognostic significance of RDW in acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) has not been reported so far. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relation of RDW to in-hospital mortality in patients with AECOPD. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed hospital records of inpatients with AECOPD in two referral teaching hospitals in two provinces of east Azerbaijan and west Azerbaijan, Iran. Associations between RDW and inhospital death were analyzed with using correlation, logistic regression analysis, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves in SPSS software. Results: We studied 330 patients, of whom 75 (22.7%) did not survive to hospital discharge. In univariate analysis higher RDW-SD values were associated with increased hospital mortality (30.2% vs. 15.8% p=0.002 odds ratio 2.31). Using the first quartile of RDW as reference, odds ratio (OR) mortality among patients in the highest RDW quartile was 5.34 (95% CI, 2.70- 12.57; p = 0.001). In multivariate analysis RDW-SD remained an independent risk factor for mortality after correction for age, thrombocytopenia, leukocyte count, mean corpuscular volume, anemia. In receiveroperating curve analysis the AUC for RDW was 0.663, which was more than that of hemoglobin, platelets. Conclusion: RDW on admission day proves to be a useful indicator to predict in-hospital death in AECOPD.
Keywords: Red blood cell distribution width, COPD, AECOPD, in-hospital death, outcome
