Can Non-Specialists Effectively Treat Sleep Apnea?

Treatment outcomes are similar among patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who receive care from sleep specialist physicians (SSPs) vs non-sleep specialists (NSSs), according to a recent systematic review.

These findings may have future implications for existing OSA diagnosis and care models, which rely on SPPs alone and can be expensive and inefficient.

For their review, the researchers evaluated data on 580 patients (mean age 52 years) enrolled in 4 studies (January 2000 to July 2017) that had compared outcomes among adults with suspected or diagnosed OSA who were treated by SSPs vs NSSs. Data were obtained from MEDLINE and CINAHL databases.

Findings indicated that outcomes were similar among patients treated by NSSs vs SSPs. However, the researchers noted that these results were limited due to the fact that many outcomes were reported infrequently or not at all.

“Care by NSSs and SSPs resulted in similar outcomes in adults with known or suspected OSA,” the researchers concluded. “Studies are needed to determine care model implementation and reproducibility of results in nonacademic settings and among less experienced NSSs.”

—Christina Vogt

Reference:

Kunisaki KM, Greer N, Khalil W, et al. Provider types and outcomes in obstructive sleep apnea case finding and treatment: a systematic review [Published online January 30, 2018]. Ann Intern Med. doi:10.7326/M17-2511.