CPAP therapy has benefits after heart surgery

	Tweet

Patients recovering from heart surgery may benefit from a treatment used commonly for sleep-disordered breathing called CPAP therapy, a new study suggests.

CPAP, which stands for continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), may help prevent pneumonia and other pulmonary complications after heart surgery and cut rates of readmission to the ICU, according to a report in the medical journal Chest.

With CPAP therapy, which is primarily used for the nighttime breathing disorder known as obstructive sleep apnea, the patient wears a face mask through which a device delivers pressurized air to keep the airways open during sleep.

Dr. Alexander Zarbock, from the University of Muenster, Germany, and colleagues assessed the benefits of CPAP in the setting of heart surgery by randomly assigning 500 patients scheduled for heart surgery to receive uninterrupted CPAP for at least 6 hours after surgery, or standard therapy, which includes CPAP but only at 10-minute intervals every 4 hours.

Results showed that uninterrupted CPAP therapy significantly improved blood “oxygenation” without altering heart rate or blood pressure.

Patients who received CPAP also experienced reduced pulmonary complications, including hypoxemia (lower than normal levels of oxygen in their blood) and pneumonia, and were less apt to require readmission to the ICU.

As well as being effective in improving outcomes after heart surgery, CPAP therapy “is a well-tolerated, simple and inexpensive technique,” the investigators note.

SOURCE: Chest, May 2009.

RELATED STORIES:
Scientists turn skin cells into beating heart muscle   Too many people get angioplasties, study suggests   New Blood Thinner May Lower Chances of Clots in High-Risk Heart Patients: FDA   Heart Damage After Chemo Linked to Stress in Cardiac Cells   What’s good or bad for the heart, may be the same for the brain   Warfarin in Heart Failure   Increased Sudden Cardiac Death Rate Among HIV Patients   Air pollution level changes in Beijing linked with biomarkers of cardiovascular disease   Lack of basic evidence hampering prevention of sudden heart attacks in sport   Blacks Less Likely to Get Help on Scene After Cardiac Arrest: Study   Heart attack patients taken to PCI hospitals first treated faster   Cameron Health’s under-skin ICD safe, effective

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]