title: Atrial arrhythmogenesis in obstructive sleep apnea: Therapeutic implications.
abstract: The prevalence of sleep disordered breathing like obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) among patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) is 40-50%. OSA reduces success rate of catheter based and pharmacological antiarrhythmic treatment. Additionally, efficient treatment of OSA by continuous positive airway pressure ventilation (CPAP), the first line therapy of OSA, has been shown to improve catheter ablation success rates in AF-patients. A systematic literature search using several databases was performed to review the pathophysiology of obstructive apneas in OSA potentially leading to the development of a substrate for AF and to explain potential mechanisms involved in the clinically observed atrial antiarrhythmic effect of effective CPAP therapy.
authors.affiliation: Kardiologie, Angiologie und Internistische Intensivmedizin, Universitätsklinikum des Saarlandes, Germany. Electronic address: Dominik.linz@uks.eu.
authors.forename: Dominik
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Linz
authors.affiliation: Kardiologie, Angiologie und Internistische Intensivmedizin, Universitätsklinikum des Saarlandes, Germany.
authors.forename: Benedikt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Linz
authors.affiliation: Kardiologie, Angiologie und Internistische Intensivmedizin, Universitätsklinikum des Saarlandes, Germany.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hohl
authors.affiliation: Kardiologie, Angiologie und Internistische Intensivmedizin, Universitätsklinikum des Saarlandes, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Böhm
mesh_terms: D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D017115:Catheter Ablation; D045422:Continuous Positive Airway Pressure / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D023421:Models, Animal; D012307:Risk Factors; D020181:Sleep Apnea, Obstructive / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy
keywords: Animal experiment; Atrial electrophysiology; Atrial fibrillation; Continuous positive airway pressure; Obstructive sleep apnea; Renal denervation