Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism

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 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.