Tirzepatide Demonstrates Consistent Efficacy in OSA Across All Severity Levels, suggests research

A recent post-hoc analysis of the SURMOUNT-OSA trials revealed that tirzepatide significantly improves obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) symptoms and cardiometabolic parameters compared to placebo. These benefits were consistent regardless of patients' baseline OSA severity or use of positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy.

Tirzepatide improved indicators of OSA and cardiometabolic parameters, such as body weight (BW), systolic blood pressure (SBP), sleep apnea specific hypoxic burden (SASHB), apnea- hypopnea index (AHI), and C-reactive protein (CRP), in participants with moderate-to-severe OSA and obesity in the SURMOUNT-OSA clinical trials. Thus, to assess the relationships between tirzepatide therapy and changes in these indicators relative to a placebo by baseline OSA severity, Liao and colleagues carried out this investigation.

Over a 52-week period, two Phase 3 trials compared the effects of tirzepatide at its highest tolerated dose (10 mg or 15 mg once weekly) vs a placebo in persons with moderate-to-severe OSA and obesity. The participants in Study 2 were receiving positive airway pressure (PAP) treatment, whereas those in Study 1 were not.

The OSA severity categories were roughly similarly weighted by baseline AHI in these post-hoc analyses for on-treatment patients with non-missing baseline AHI measurements (moderate, AHI ≥15 to <30; severe, AHI ≥30 to <70; very severe, AHI ≥70). For binary outcomes, OSA-related measurements were examined using logistic regression; for continuous variables, mixed-model repeated measures were used.