Sleep apnea syndrome caused lowering of cerebral oxygenation in a hemodialysis patient: a case report and literature review

Background Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is a sleep disturbance, which is frequently comorbid in dialysis patients. SAS induces hypoxia, and therefore, systemic and cerebral oxygenation would be low. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has recently been used to measure regional saturation of oxygen (rSO2), as a marker of tissue oxygenation. Although cerebral rSO2 was measured in patients in various clinical settings, few reports have previously shown the associations of changes in cerebral rSO2 and systemic oxygenation using measurement of peripheral arterial oxygen saturation (SpO2) in patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) with SAS. We herein report a first HD case with SAS-induced reduction in cerebral oxygenation during sleep.