Survival and Risk Factors Associated with Mortality in Patients with Sleep Apnoea in Colombia: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Eduardo Tuta-Quintero,1 Alirio R Bastidas,1 Kamil Faizal-Gómez,1 Sergio Guillermo Torres-Riveros,2 Diego Alejandro Rodríguez-Barajas,2 Jonathan Alexander Guezguan,1 Laura D Muñoz,1 Ana Carolina Rojas,1 Katherine Hernández Calderón,1 Natalia Valentina Ardila Velasco,1 Paula Prieto,1 Juliana Cuestas,1 Julian Camacho-Osorio,1 Gabriela Bonilla,1 Estefania Collazos Bahamon,1 María Alejandra Guardiola,1 David Luna Salazar,1 Lina Paola Fajardo,1 Johan Rincón-Hernández1 1Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia; 2Residente de Medicina Interna, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, ColombiaCorrespondence: Alirio R Bastidas, School of Medicine, Universidad de La Sabana, Km 7, Autonorte de Bogota, Chía, Cundinamarca, 250001, Colombia, Email [email protected]: Survival in patients with sleep apnoea (SA) can be reduced by variables such as age, sex, and comorbidities. However, survival data in patients with SA in Colombia remains scarce.Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of patients diagnosed with SA between 2005 and 2022. Five-year survival was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and survival curves were stratified by age, sex, and cardiovascular disease. Risk factors associated with survival were evaluated using Hazard Ratio (HR) by adjusting for confounding variables with a Cox regression model. A minimum sample size of 1537 patients were estimated to be necessary to estimate a survival incidence rate with a 5% precision.Results: The five-year survival rate in the general population was 94.6%, with lower survival in patients over 65 years (88.5% vs 97.9%; p < 0.001) and in patients with cardiovascular disease (89% vs 95.2%; p < 0.001) compared to the control group. In the Cox regression, age showed an HR of 1.05 (95% CI: 1.02– 1.07; p < 0.001). Male sex had an HR of 2.31 (95% CI: 1.25– 4.25; p = 0.007), congestive heart failure an HR of 4.00 (95% CI: 2.31– 6.94; p < 0.001), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) an HR of 1.75 (95% CI: 1.04– 2.96; p = 0.035), chronic kidney disease (CKD) an HR of 2.23 (95% CI: 1.31– 3.78; p = 0.003), and metastatic cancer an HR of 4.96 (95% CI: 1.95– 12.60; p = 0.001).Conclusion: The study showed a high five-year survival rate in patients with SA. The risk factors associated with decreased overall five-year survival were age, male sex, cardiovascular disease, COPD, CKD, and metastatic cancer.Keywords: sleep apnoea, survival, risk factors