Adaptive servo-ventilation therapy improves long-term prognosis in heart failure patients with anemia and sleep-disordered breathing.

Abstract

Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and anemia influences the progression of chronic heart failure (CHF). Adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV) is an effective therapeutic device for treatment of CHF, however, the impacts of ASV on CHF patients with or without anemia remain unclear.A total of 139 patients with CHF and SDB were divided into two groups: those treated with ASV (n = 53) and without ASV (n = 86). All patients were prospectively followed after discharge with the endpoints of cardiac death or progressive heart failure requiring rehospitalization. There were 65 patients (47%) with anemia among all subjects. The apnea hypopnea index was improved, and plasma BNP and high sensitive C-reactive protein levels were decreased in both groups with and without anemia by ASV therapy. The Kaplan-Meier survival curve demonstrated that the cardiac event-free rate in patients with ASV was significantly higher than in those without ASV in the anemia group (P = 0.008). However, in the non-anemia group, the cardiac event-free rate was similarly high in patients both with and without ASV (P = 0.664). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis demonstrated that ASV use was an independent predictor of cardiac events in the anemia group (P = 0.0308), but not in the non-anemia group.ASV treatment for CHF and SDB has more favorable impacts in patients with anemia than in those without anemia.