Variable Dead Space Rebreathing Device to Treat Sleep Apnea

Sleep Apnea, Obstructive Clinical Trial

Official title: Feasibility of a Variable Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Rebreathe Device ("Smart CO2") to Treat Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The purpose of this pilot study is to determine the feasibility of using a novel treatment for sleep apnea in which the patient's own exhaled CO2 is tightly controlled and used in a rebreathe system to reduce sleep disordered breathing.

Clinical Trial Description

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) needs to be treated with devices that will be utilized with greater compliance by patients than is currently the case with positive airway pressure. To this end, the investigators recently showed that increased inspired CO2 via rebreathing was effective in reducing most obstructive and central apneas in OSA patients. Then, the investigator's University of Wisconsin (UW) team of bioengineers, physiologists, and sleep physicians built a novel variable dead space rebreathe device—with no added positive pressure—which monitors breath by breath ventilation and automatically adjusts the rebreathe dead space volume to add or subtract the level of inspired CO2 depending on the degree of sleep disordered breathing. This approach provides the minimum effective CO2 dose needed in individual OSA patients to stabilize central respiratory motor output and to recruit upper airway dilator muscles, thereby treating obstructive and central apneas. The investigators propose to determine the effectiveness of this "Smart CO2" treatment as well as its effects on sleep state stability, sleep quality, and blood pressure in 10 moderate to severe OSA patients studied over several nights. The investigators expect the findings from the proposed study to be sufficient to determine if the "Smart CO2" treatment is a viable approach to OSA treatment worthy of testing in a clinical trial. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Apnea
• Sleep Apnea Syndromes
• Sleep Apnea, Central
• Sleep Apnea, Obstructive

• NCT number: NCT03552133
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: August 2016
• Completion date: October 1, 2019