• Seiichiro Sakao, Takayuki Sakurai, Misuzu Yahaba, Yoriko Sakurai, Jiro Terada, Nobuhiro Tanabe, and Koichiro Tatsumi.
• Department of Respirology (B2), Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Japan.
• Intern. Med. 2015 Jan 1; 54 (12): 148114871481-7.

ObjectiveRapid eye movement (REM)-related sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is an entity in which the cessation or reduction of breathing occurs primarily during the REM period. Most studies have shown that REM-related SDB more frequently affects women, younger people and patients with mild or moderate SDB. The aim of this study was to prospectively investigate the prevalence and features of REM-related SDB in Japanese subjects compared with the findings of previous reports.MethodsA total of 468 patients were evaluated in this study. The diagnosis of SDB was established using polysomnographic monitoring. The patient variables included age, gender, body characteristics, comorbidities, etc.ResultsREM-related SDB was more prevalent in women than non-REM-related SDB (male ratio; 66.3% vs. 79.5%, p=0.03). Moreover, the patients with REM-related SDB had lower body mass indexes (25.9 ± 6.9 vs. 28.5 ± 7.7; p=0.003), arousal indexes (31.8 ± 10.7 vs. 61.0 ± 29.1; p<0.001), apnea hypopnea indexes (15.0 ± 8.0 vs. 54.9 ± 35.9) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels (5.5 ± 0.9 vs. 5.9 ± 2.6; p=0.02) than the patients with non-REM-related SDB. However, the overall and female gender prevalence of REM-related SDB among the Japanese subjects was lower than that shown in previous reports. The finding that REM-related SDB was not prevalent in younger individuals or severely obese patients was not consistent with the results of previous studies.ConclusionThe present findings suggest that REM-related SDB may have different clinical characteristics in the Japanese population than that observed in previous reports.

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