Preoperative differences between male and female patients with sleep apnea

Objectives/Hypothesis. To evaluate the differences between female and male patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) in the preoperative p eriod. Study Design: Nonrandomized cross-sectional study. Methods: An analy sis of 686 patients (111 women and 575 men) with OSAS was completed. Multiv ariate modeling techniques were employed to correlate gender with the preop erative respiratory disturbance index (RDI), apnea index (Al), hypopnea ind ex (111), body mass index (BAH), age, and initial symptoms. Results. At pre sentation, the male patients were significantly younger and had a lower BAH and a higher RDI and Al than the female patients. For the entire OSAS popu lation studied, the RDI increased as the BAH increased (correlation coeffic ient [r] = 0.35, P = < .001). For the female patients there was a weaker co rrelation (r = 0.21, P = .034), and in male patients there was a stronger c orrelation (r = 0.40, P < .001). For the entire population there was a nega tive correlation between age and RDI (r = -0.15, P < .001). In female patie nts there was a nonsignificant correlation (r = -0.09, P =.35), and in male patients the correlation was significant (r = -0.16, P < .001). There was no difference in the reporting of the number of symptoms based on gender (P = .355). Female patients noted headaches on awakening more commonly than m ale patients (P = .001), and male patients noted snoring (P = .014) and sto pping breathing during sleep (P = .001) more often than female patients. Co nclusions. The analysis demonstrated that within a surgical population samp le, gender differences exist. The findings of this series were as follows: 1) Apnea severity in women was less weight-dependent than in men; (2) in me n there was a significant negative correlation between age and apnea severi ty; and (3) female and male patients reported the same number of signs or s ymptoms on presentation, although certain signs and symptoms were more comm only reported based on gender. Current clinical evaluation practices must t ake into account this gender disparity.