title: Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to investigate the risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) among patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) during the first 5 years following a diagnosis of OSA, compared with patients without OSA during the same period.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was a matched-cohort study in Taiwan that included 1424 study subjects with OSA and 14,240 randomly selected comparison subjects. We identified subjects who subsequently received a diagnosis of VTE within the first 5 years following their index date. Stratified Cox proportional hazards regressions were performed to compare the 5-year VTE-free survival rates between the study cohort and comparison cohort.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The incidence of VTE was 2.67 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.69-4.70) and 0.96 (95% CI, 0.75-1.20) for subjects with and without OSA, respectively. Stratified Cox proportional hazards regressions revealed that the hazard ratio for VTE among subjects with OSA was 2.07 (95% CI, 1.21-3.52) that of comparison subjects after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hyperlipidemia, renal disease, obesity, whether or not a subject was hospitalized, whether or not a subject had suffered a fracture within 1 year prior to the index date, and censoring those who died during the 5-year follow-up period. We further found that the adjusted hazard ratio of deep vein thrombosis among OSA patients was 1.88 (95% CI, 1.08-3.29) that of comparison subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that there is an increased risk of deep vein thrombosis among OSA patients during the first 5 years following their diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Informatics, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Ching-Chun
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Joseph J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Jiunn-Horng
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Shuang-Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Tai-Chieh
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.affiliation: School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan. Electronic address: henry11111@tmu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Herng-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin