Obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) is associated with cardiovascular consequences that may involve the right heart. This study aimed to characterize right atrial structure and function in patients with OSAHS using two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) and to explore relationships between atrial mechanics and disease severity measured by the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI).
The investigation was a case-control study. The OSAHS group comprised 120 patients, and the control group comprised 100 healthy individuals. The source abstract identifies this enrollment and indicates that comparisons were made between the OSAHS and control groups and among OSAHS subgroups defined by AHI. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria, recruitment setting, and demographic breakdowns beyond group sizes were not provided in the abstract.
Conventional transthoracic echocardiography was used to assess right atrial geometry, including superior–inferior diameter, transverse diameter, area, and volume. In addition, myocardial longitudinal strain parameters of the right atrium were derived using 2D-STE. The strain indices reported were reservoir strain (RASr), conduit strain (RAScd), and contraction strain (RASct). The abstract does not report imaging acquisition protocols, vendor/software details, or intra- and interobserver reproducibility metrics; those details may be in the full text.
OSAHS patients were stratified by apnea-hypopnea index into three severity categories: mild (AHI 5–14 events/h), moderate (AHI 15–39 events/h), and severe (AHI ≥ 40 events/h). Group comparisons and correlation analyses were performed, with Pearson correlation used to assess relationships between AHI and atrial structural and functional parameters. The abstract reports significance at p < 0.05 but does not provide exact correlation coefficients or additional statistical outputs in the summary.
Compared with the healthy control group, the OSAHS group demonstrated progressive enlargement in right atrial geometry, specifically an increase in transverse diameter that tracked with greater disease severity. The abstract lists superior–inferior diameter, area, and volume as measured variables, but highlights transverse diameter as increased with worsening OSAHS. Exact numeric values and confidence intervals are not reported in the abstract.
Right atrial myocardial longitudinal strain parameters showed consistent alterations across increasing OSAHS severity. Specifically, RASr (reservoir strain) and RAScd (conduit strain) progressively decreased in OSAHS patients relative to controls, indicating impaired reservoir and conduit function. By contrast, RASct (contraction strain) increased with more severe disease. Correlation analysis demonstrated that AHI correlated negatively with RASr and RAScd, and positively with RASct and transverse diameter (all reported with p < 0.05). The abstract does not provide the numerical correlation coefficients or effect sizes.
The findings reported in the abstract indicate that OSAHS is associated with both structural enlargement and altered mechanical function of the right atrium. Decreases in reservoir and conduit strain alongside increases in contraction strain suggest a pattern of compensatory or pathological remodeling of atrial mechanics as OSAHS severity increases. The authors propose that 2D-STE offers a reliable, non-invasive method for early detection and clinical evaluation of right atrial dysfunction in patients with OSAHS, supporting its potential role in cardiovascular risk assessment in this population.
The PubMed abstract summarizes primary objectives, methods, group sizes, main endpoints, and principal results, but it does not include detailed methodology such as imaging protocol parameters, software or vendor used for 2D-STE, full demographic and comorbidity profiles, exact strain values, measures of variability, or reproducibility data. Information on follow-up, clinical outcomes, or interventions is not reported in the abstract. Readers should consult the full text for these methodological and statistical details.
In this case-control study of 120 OSAHS patients and 100 healthy controls, progressive alterations in right atrial structure and myocardial longitudinal strain were observed with increasing OSAHS severity. AHI correlated negatively with reservoir and conduit strain and positively with contraction strain and transverse atrial diameter. The authors conclude that 2D-STE can noninvasively identify early right atrial dysfunction in OSAHS, though full methodological and numerical results are available only in the full-text article.