Sleep Breathing Disorders in Chronic Opium User COPD Patients

Both of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and consumption of opium/opiates have harmful effects on breathing. During the day, it may decrease oxygen level and increase carbon dioxide level in blood while may cause sleep disordered breathing in nights. Sleep disordered breathing includes obstructive sleep apnea, central apnea, hypopnea, ataxic breathing, hypoventilation and hypoxia. The previous studies have emphasized on considerable respiratory disorders of COPD patients and opioid abusers, separately. However, according to our knowledge, there is no or rare studies on the simultaneous effects of these two conditions on sleep breathing disorders.
The current study tried to compare sleep breathing patterns in 31 COPD patients with (14 persons) and without (17 persons) opioid use. Data gathering and polysomnography of the participants were carried out to determine any disturbances in sleep respiratory patterns and consequently the findings were compared between the groups statistically.
The results showed that obstructive sleep apnea (AHI>15/h) was 71% among the opioid users, significantly different from non-opioid users (76%).
Central sleep apnea (CSA) was significantly higher in opioid users, while the mean was lower than 5 per hour. The other parameters had no significant difference.
Long term usage of opioids may affect sleep breath patterns and cause higher CSA. It doesn’t make any significant alteration in blood oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in day time.