Improving Nocturnal Hypoxemic Burden with Transvenous Phrenic Nerve Stimulation for the Treatment of Central Sleep Apnea

Nocturnal hypoxemic burden is established as a robust prognostic metric of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) to predict mortality and treating hypoxemic burden may improve prognosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate improvements in nocturnal hypoxemic burden using transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation (TPNS) to treat patients with central sleep apnea (CSA). The remede System Pivotal Trial population was examined for nocturnal hypoxemic burden. The minutes of sleep with oxygen saturation < 90% significantly improved in Treatment compared with control (p < .001), with the median improving from 33 min at baseline to 14 min at 6 months. Statistically significant improvements were also observed for average oxygen saturation and lowest oxygen saturation. Hypoxemic burden has been demonstrated to be more predictive for mortality than apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) and should be considered a key metric for therapies used to treat CSA. Transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation is capable of delivering meaningful improvements in nocturnal hypoxemic burden. There is increasing interest in endpoints other than apnea-hypopnea index in sleep-disordered breathing. Nocturnal hypoxemia burden may be more predictive for mortality than apnea-hypopnea index in patients with poor cardiac function. Transvenous phrenic nerve stimulation is capable of improving nocturnal hypoxemic burden.