Alterations of the cardiovascular rhythms and sleep quality in esophageal cancer patients

ABSTRACT

In humans, there is a daily rhythm in blood pressure and is one of the known risk factors for different types of cardiovascular diseases. Sleep quality is an important clinical construct. Daytime sleepiness is common sleep related clinical problem, suggesting a serious underlying physiological anomaly. Most of the studies have been done in reference to colorectal/rectal cancer however, limited knowledge is available for other cancer patients. Present study was conducted on esophageal cancer patients (N= 24; 10 male and 14 female). Daily activity rest pattern using actigraphy and cardiovascular parameters were recoded using ABPM. Sleep quality and daytime sleepiness was studied using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) respectively. Our results show that there is daily variation in activity rest pattern and cardiovascular parameters (systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, pulse and double product) in both healthy subjects and esophagealcancer patients but with reduction in the amplitude of cardiovascular parameters in patients without affecting activity rest pattern. Sleep quality is also compromised and daytime sleepiness is higher in cancer patients. The study show that cardiovascular parameters and sleep quality is altered in the esophageal cancer patients.

KEYWORDS:

• Cardiovascular rhythms
• sleep quality
• daytime sleepiness
• esophageal cancer

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the patients of Nazareth Cancer Hospital, Chatlang and Mizoram State Cancer Institute, Zemabawk, Aizawl, Mizoram and other volunteers who participated in the study. We also acknowledge Prof. Vinod Kumar, University of Delhi, Delhi, India for providing motion logger and ABPM to conduct this study. Financial support from SERB, New Delhi to AKT is greatly acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Engineering Research Board, New Delhi [000626].