Sleep Disorders and Cancer

Abstract

There is a growing evidence that sleep disorders are associated with an increased incidence and accelerated cancer progression. In the light of the previously established relationship between hypoxemia and cancer, obstructive sleep apnea and its main consequence, intermittent hypoxia, could be associated with a poorer prognosis or higher incidence of cancer. From this pathophysiological starting point, and in the light of animal studies that confirmed this association, two separate research groups observed in large-scale clinical and epidemiological series that the degree of nighttime hypoxia found in patients with obstructive sleep apnea was associated with a higher incidence of cancer, as well as a higher mortality rate although their retrospective nature means that they should be considered with caution. A study currently in progress with a large group of patients with melanoma may soon cast new light on the existence or not of this association and its underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.