The Need for Glaucoma Management in Glaucoma Patients with Concurrent Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Abstract

We try to evaluate glaucoma management numbers in patients with both glaucoma and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) using the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) of Taiwan. A retrospective cohort study was conducted and patients with glaucoma were enrolled and divided into the OSA and non-OSA populations. A total of 11,778 participants were selected in both the OSA and non-OSA groups. The primary outcomes were the number of anti-glaucomatous medications each year and the total number of glaucoma laser and glaucoma surgeries. The Cox proportional hazard regression was utilized to produce the adjusted hazard ratios (AHR) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) between the two groups. After a study period of 18 years, 286 and 352 events of laser and surgeries for glaucoma were found in the OSA and non-OSA groups, respectively. After considering the effect of potential confounders, no significant difference concerning the numbers of laser trabeculoplasty, trabeculectomy and tube shunt surgery, cyclodestructive procedure and eyeball removal were found between the two groups (all 95% CIs included one). In addition, the multiple anti-glaucomatous medication usages were similar between the two groups (all p > 0.05) In the subgroup analyses, glaucoma patients older than 60 years and with OSA received significantly lesser trabeculectomy and tube shunt surgery compared to glaucoma patients older than 60 years without OSA (AHR: 0.774, 95% CI: 0.611–0.981) while other analyses revealed insignificant results (all 95% CIs included one). In conclusion, the presence of OSA does not increase the need for glaucoma management.

Investigating the Causal Relationship Between Sleep Behaviors and Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Bidirectional Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

“…[6][7][8] In contrast, patients with glaucoma are more susceptible than healthy people to sleep dysfunction such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), snoring, or insomnia. [9][10][11][12][13] Despite increasing evidence from observational studies suggesting a correlation between sleep behaviors and POAG, there have also been several clinical studies reporting no association between them, [14][15][16] with the existing literature on the subject being inconclusive and debatable. Additionally, whether demographics, socioeconomic status, and comorbidities are potential confounding factors in this relationship remains to be elucidated.…”