Dr Adam Benjafield Addresses Improved Outcomes With ASV in Opioid Users With CSA

Treating sleep-disordered breathing with methods such as adaptive sero-ventilation (ASV) could potentially improve areas such as cognitive function and productivity in patients with central sleep apnea (CSA) using opioids, according to Adam Benjafield, PhD, vice president of medical affairs at ResMed. Benjafield also discussed the impact opioids have on patients with CSA.

In research presented at the American Thoracic Society 2024 International Conference, Benjafield and colleagues explored the treatment of sleep-disordered breathing with ASV in opioid users.

Transcript

Could initiating ASV improve other outcomes in opioid users with CSA, besides sleepiness and disease-specific quality of life? For instance, could it improve cognitive function or pain levels?

There is evidence that suggests apart from sleepiness and disease specific quality of life, which is what we specifically measured in the READ-ASV registry that other aspects that when you treat sleep disordered breathing, such as central sleep apnea, there can be improvements in cognitive function. There can be improvements in productivity and other aspects as well, by having that good quality sleep, then allows better overall health.

With the opioid crisis in the US, what insights does this registry provide on that patient group?

This is a really important point. There's not a lot of clinical literature that has been published on the topic of opioid induced central sleep apnea, and the impact of treating that central sleep apnea. What we found with this registry, this specific subgroup of patients had significant improvements in both sleepiness as well as disease specific quality of life when they had their central sleep apnea treated by adaptive servo ventilation. This highlighted that there is sometimes very difficult to manage population can get significant improvements in their quality of life by having their opioid induced central sleep apnea appropriately treated, which is what the ASV therapy is designed to do.