LOCALIZATION AND TYPE OF ACUTE STROKE IN RELATION TO SLEEP APNEA

Background: More than 50% of stroke patients have sleep-disordered breathing. Aim: To determine whether the location, side of stroke and type of stroke affect the occurrence of sleep apnea. Patients and methods: Of the 500 patients with the first stroke treated at the Neurology Clinic for one year, 110 (22%) had sleep apnea. Acute stroke has been verified either by computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. The mean age of subjects with apnea was 65.13 ± 9.27 years. The control group consisted of the same number of patients without apnea (n=iio) and without a statistically significant difference in patient age and sex distribution. Results: The largest number of patients with and without apnea had ischemic stroke 83.6%, while 16.4% of patients had hemorrhagic stroke. There was no statistically significant difference in type of stroke between the groups. With apnea, the largest number had a lesion in two or more places 51.8%, as well as without apnea 45.45%, but the difference was not statistically significant. The largest number of patients with apnea, had lesions in right hemisphere (44/40%), and then followed both (40/36.4 %) and the left (26/23.6%) hemispheres. The largest number of patients without apnea had lesions in both (50/45.4%), left (32/29.1%) and right (28/25.5%) hemispheres. There is a statistically significant association between the localization of stroke in the right hemisphere and the apnea (X2 = 4.65, p = 0.03). Conclusion: There is a statistically significant association between the localization of stroke in the right hemisphere and the apnea.