Respiratory Effects of Adaptive Servoventilation Therapy in Patients with Heart Failure and Cheyne-Stokes Respiration Compared to Healthy Volunteers

Background: Nocturnal adaptive servoventilation (ASV) therapy is now frequently used to treat Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR), which is highly prevalent in patients with moderate-to-severe heart failure (HF) and characterized by periodical breathing (hyperventilation). Objectives: This study analyzed and compared the acute effects of a novel ASV device on carbon dioxide pressure (pCO 2 ) and oxygen saturation (SaO 2 ) in HF patients with CSR and healthy volunteers. The influence of being asleep or awake on the ASV algorithm was also determined. Methods: All subjects underwent ASV (PaceWave TM , ResMed) for 1 h. Transcutaneous pCO 2 (PtcCO 2 ) and SaO 2 were assessed transcutaneously, while wakefulness was analyzed using EEG recordings. Assessments were made 30 min before and after ASV, and during 1 h of ASV. Results: Twenty HF patients (19 male; age 79 ± 12 years) and 15 volunteers (13 male, age 25 ± 4 years) were included. When awake, ASV was associated with a trend towards a decrease in PtcCO 2 and an increase in SaO 2 Received: December 18, 2013 Accepted after revision: December 30, 2014 Published online: April 10, 2015 Olaf Oldenburg, MD Department of Cardiology, Heart and Diabetes Centre North Rhine-Westphalia University Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum Georgstrasse 11, DE–32545 Bad Oeynhausen (Germany) E-Mail akleemeyer @ hdz-nrw.de © 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel 0025–7931/15/0895–0374$39.50/0