Background: Understanding the genetic transmission of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) will help clinicians identify patients at risk and offer opportunities for intervention and treatment at specialist clinics.
Objective: To estimate familial risk of hospitalization for OSAS in the adult population of Sweden, and to determine if there are any differences by age and sex.
Design, setting, and participants: Using the MigMed database at the Karolinska Institute, we divided the population of Sweden into sibling groups based on a shared mother and father and ascertained the presence or absence of a primary hospital diagnosis of OSAS in each individual during the follow-up period, 1997 to 2004. Individuals were categorized as having or not having a sibling with OSAS, based on the presence or absence of the disorder in at least 1 of their siblings. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated for men and women with a sibling with OSAS, compared with men and women in the reference group (SIR = 1).
Results: After accounting for socioeconomic status, age, geographic region, and period of diagnosis, men with at least 1 sibling who had OSAS had a SIR of 3.42 (95% CI, 2.18-5.36); the corresponding SIR in women was 3.25 (95% CI, 1.84-5.65).
Conclusions: Our results indicate that physicians should consider family history of OSAS when deciding whether to refer a patient for further sleep examinations.