Patients with sleep apnea may be commonly misdiagnosed with hypertension, says a study published in the March issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians. In the study, one-third of patients with sleep apnea who were physician-diagnosed with hypertension actually had "white coat hypertension" (WCH), a condition characterized by an increase in blood pressure during a doctor's office visit and normal blood press during all other situations. The study also found that patients with sleep apnea and WCH had a more difficult time falling asleep and had longer periods of wakefulness after falling asleep than sleep apnea patients with normal blood pressure or sustained high blood pressure.
"Although the relationship between hypertension and sleep apnea is well established, our results suggest that the occurrence of WCH could lead to overdiagnosis of hypertension among patients with sleep apnea, thereby leading to potentially flawed conclusions regarding the causative association of hypertension and sleep apnea," said lead researcher Francisco Garcia-Rio, PhD, La Paz University Hospital, Madrid, Spain.