Objectives: 

To determine the pattern of mitral inflow obtained by echocardiography in patients diagnosed of OSAS with an apnea hypopnea index (AHI)equal or higher than 10, compared with a group of healthy individuals (AHI<10).

Materials: 

Prospective study of patients diagnosed of OSAS by polysomnography. The patients were grouped depending upon the presence or not of somnolence and according to variables such as ejection fraction of the left ventricle (EFLV), early (E) and late (A–atrial)- ventricular peak flow velocity and E/A ratio, to determine 3 types of ventricular filling: ventricular relaxation abnormality (E/A equal or lower than 0,8), normal or pseudonormal (E/A between 0.81 and 2,19, both inclusive) and restrictive pattern or distensibility alteration (E/A equal or higher than 2,2). Statistical analysis was carried out with Student's T test for independent variables, with a significance level of p<0,05.

Results: 

78 male patients, 48 of them diagnosed of OSAS (AHI 51±28) by polysomnography, in this group, 27 presented excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and 21 did not; the remaining 30 patients were healthy (13 with EDS and 17 with no EDS). Mean age 46±10 years old, body mass index (BMI):29.8±3,8, systolic arterial pressure: 135±13 and diastolic arterial pressure:86±6. The EFLV in individuals with no EDS was significatively lower in patients with OSAS compared with the patients with no OSAS (p= 0,042), we did not find differences between the rest of the variables. Patients with no EDS presented signs of alteration of ventricular relaxation while those with EDS presented a normal ventricular filling pattern. We observed differences in the diastolic blood pressure in those patients with no OSAS even though they had lower values of BMI.

Conclusions: 

Given that the diastolic ventricular filling is altered in those subjects with no EDS, the absence of excessive daytime sleepiness in patients with OSAS is an independent predictor factor of cardiovascular morbility.