Treatment of OSA/Heart Disease with Oxygen Under Study

[Auricula]

I just received an invitation to participate in a study at Johns Hopkins to determine if treating OSA will improve heart disease risk factors. From the questionnaire, it appears that patients already in treatment for OSA, as well as the undiagnosed, are eligible. What interests me the most is that one goal will be to determine whether nighttime treatment with oxygen delivered by a simple plastic tube worn at the nose is as effective as standard PAP machines. Assignment to these three study groups will be random: 1) oxygen only; 2) CPAP; 3) only counseling and general heart disease education.

[kteague]

Interesting. Are you going to participate?

[torontoCPAPguy]

Sorry. Too late. We've already done the study online here. Perhaps they'd like to join our forum and get educated?

I sure wouldn't want to be in the group that is using counselling only. Nor would I want to be in the group that is using CPAP only under my circumstances. But then again, one should be totally selfless and donate their bodies for the benefit of medical science.... from a personal standpoint, if it's all the same, I'd prefer to wait until I'm looking at the grass from the other side.

But then again, I haven't taken the hypocratic (or is it hypocritical) oath to 'do no harm', etc.

My friend, be careful of what you sign up for and what group they plop you into for the sake of science.

[Goofproof]

I could go with group 2 (XPAP), or a combo of group 1 & 2 combined (Not a listed option). No way would I let my treatment and health be under someone elses control that knows less about what's going on with my Sleep Apnea than I do. Jim

[rested gal]

Very interesting, Auricula.

Wonder if people with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) will be included. If so, wonder if they will be give plain CPAP or will they be given an ASV machine designed to treat CHF.

Wonder how the newly diagnosed who get assigned to the "CPAP" group will be fitted with a mask, and how they will be followed up for mask issues.

Wonder how soon (if ever) the leak rate will be checked on those assigned to CPAP.

[kteague]

When I revisited this thread this morning, I thought about how so many research studies put people at risk. I've had the chance to make some extra money in a few medication studies, but the realization that it would mean stopping my current medication and maybe-or-maybe-not getting an unproven med, it was a risk I wasn't willing to take. Even for the sake of research, it seems cruel to put someone with OSA at such risk. The scary thing about research is that it is an industry, funded either by grant dollars or those who stand to benefit from the outcomes. I'm not suggesting impropriety, just that patient well being may not be the sole motivator for the researcher who proposes projects as well as the entities that fund them. Some research is being done because it keeps a lab in business and checks coming in, not because it is going to result in disease cures or improved lives. I only wish participants were uniformly competent to make wise decisions.