Relationship between Severity and Complexity of Coronary Artery Involvement and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Based on STOP‑BANG Questionnaire

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which has a known correlation with cardiovascular disease, is a possible risk factor of coronary artery disease (CAD) that is preventable.

We sought to put lights on the relationship between OSA based on the STOP‑BANG questionnaire (SBQ) and the severity and complexity of coronary artery involvement.

This cross‑sectional, single‑center, retrospective study was conducted among 145 patients who underwent selective coronary angiography (SCA) between October 2018 and March 2019, admitted to the Tehran Heart Center, Tehran, Iran. OSA risk was assessed in patients based on SBQ categories. Also, the severity and complexity of coronary artery involvement calculated according to SYNTAX and Gensini scores. Analysis performed by statistical software SPSS 25.

Based on SBQ risk assessment categories, 22 (15.2%), 64 (44.1%), and 59 (40.7%) of the patients were low, intermediate, and high‑risk for OSA, respectively. By comparing the means of coronary artery involvement, there was no significant difference in SYNTAX score 17.15 ± 13.67 (10.56–23.74) in low, 15.67 ± 9.78 (13.19– 18.16) in intermediate, and 16.93 ± 9.21 (14.42–19.45) in high‑risk groups; P value: 0.754, and Gensini score 66.4 ± 70.75 (35.04–97.77) in low, 66.21 ± 55.05 (52.45–79.96) in intermediate, 74.61 ± 56.33 (59.93–89.3) iin high risk groups; P value: 0.697 with groups of OSA risks. Also, after adjusting confounding factors, there was still no statistically significant difference in terms of coronary involvement scores.

There was no statistically significant difference in SYNTAX and Gensini scores of different groups of OSA risk categories based on the SBQ. However, our results can’t be extended into the connection between OSA and CAD.