Sleep Apnea–A Hidden Global Epitome –Worldwide Comparative Study

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common sleep-related breathing disorder and is characterized by recurrent episodes of complete or partial obstruction of the upper airway leading to reduced or absent breathing during sleep.These events are termed "apneas" with complete or near-complete stopping of breathing, or "hypopneas" when there is partial reduction in breathing. Apneas may or may not be associated with 3% reduction in the Oxygen level and arousals, but apneas must be associated with either 3% reduction in the oxygen or arousals or both (1).The sleep-related breathing disorders are classified into 3 basic categories: central sleep apnea syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) syndrome, and sleep-related hypoventilation/hypoxic syndrome by International Classification of Sleep Disorders (2).There is two to threefold of higher incidence of sleep apnea in men than in woman (3-5), about 2%of men and 4%of women only in western countries.After population-based epidemiologic investigations of nonclinical samples by U.S. NIH and also the Cleveland Family Study (6), the Penn State sleep study (7-8), and the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort ( 9) throughout the 1990’s —found out the prevalence of OSA is more common than anticipated.