Sleep news continues to pour forth from this week’s American Thoracic Society International Conference, with the latest research declaring that home testing of sleep apnea followed by initiation of home treatment with an auto-titrating CPAP device reduced costs compared with in-laboratory testing and titration. Furthermore, home testing did not negatively impact clinical outcomes.
“While the use of home testing and initiation of CPAP therapy is increasingly common, studies of its cost-effectiveness are scarce,” said lead author Charles W. Atwood, Jr., MD, associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and director of the Sleep Disorders Program of the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in a NewsWise summary. “In our randomized study, sleep-related costs were substantially lower for patients who underwent home testing and treatment initiation than for those who underwent laboratory testing, and this cost saving was accomplished without sacrificing clinical quality.”
According to a news report, the study enrolled 296 subjects, 113 of whom began CPAP at home and 110 of whom began in a laboratory. Assessment with the Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire, a disease-specific quality of life questionnaire designed to assess the impact of sleep disorders on activities of everyday living and the extent to which these abilities are improved by treatment, showed no significant difference in outcomes between groups.
Publication summary:
Cost-Effectiveness Of Home Management Of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: The Veterans Sleep Apnea Treatment Trial, [Publication Page: A3672]C.W. Atwood, MD1, S.T. Kuna, MD2, K.C. Little, MS1, S. Hin, MS2, R. Gupta, MS2, I. Gurubhagavatula, MD, MPH2, H. Glick, PhD2
1Pittsburgh, PA/US, 2Philadelphia, PA/US