Abstract
Purpose :
To investigate the association of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) with optic neuropathy (ON), and evaluate the efficacy of treatment for OSA in reducing the risk of ON.
Methods :
We used the data from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database (LHID), which involved the 1 million insurants from Taiwan National Health Insurance program (Taiwan NHI).
Results :
OSA patients had a 1.95-fold higher risk of ON compared with non-OSA patients in all age group. The risk was significantly higher (adjusted hazard ratio: 4.21) in the group with age < 45 years and male individuals (adjusted hazard ratio: 1.93). Meanwhile, sleep apnea was associated with ON regardless of existence of comorbidity or not. OSA patients treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) had an adjusted 2.31-fold higher hazard of developing ON compared to control, and those without any treatment had an adjusted 1.82-fold higher hazard of developing ON compared to control. Moreover, ON patients had a 1.45-fold higher risk of OSA, those with age between 45-64 years (hazard ratio: 1.76) and male (hazard ratio: 1.55) had highest risk.
Conclusions :
Our study showed OSA increases the risk of developing ON after controlling the comorbidity, however, treatment with CPAP didn’t reduce the risk of ON. Further large population study accessing to medical records about the severity of OSA and treatment for OSA is needed to clarify the efficacy of treatment for OSA in reducing the risk of ON.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.