Czech succeeds in USA with his research into sleep apnoea

Brno, March 18 (CTK) - Czech scientist Ivan Cundrle, from a research team in the Brno-based International Centre of Clinical Research (ICRC), has succeeded with his research into the sleep apnoea treatment in the United States, Brno's St Anne Hospital spokeswoman Sarka Urbankova has told CTK.

The ICRC is operating within the hospital.

Cundrle along with a team of Czech and U.S. researchers have uncovered that the incidence of sleep apnoea, causing breathing troubles during sleep, may be connected with a low level of the leptin hormone in blood.

Thanks to the finding, leptin might become a significant indicator to help diagnose sleep apnoea in time.

Sleep apnoea is a disorder characterised by abnormal pauses in breathing or abnormally low breathing moments during sleep. Each pause can last from ten seconds to minutes, and may occur five to 30 times or more an hour.

The symptoms of central sleep apnoea are, for instance, snoring, irregular breathing during sleep, concentration difficulties and sleepiness during the day.

Besides, apnoea may lead to heart failure and cerebrovascular accident (CVA) or stroke.

"The international research team has set the leptin level in blood that indicates the risk of sleep apnoea incidence in the case of patients with heart failure. It can be measured by a relatively simple and accessible test," Urbankova said.

Cundrle received the Young Investigation Award for the best young researchers in he category of cardiovascular research in San Francisco.

He was working on this project during his fellowship at the U.S. Mayo Clinic.

The award was also given to another Czech, doctor Ondrej Sochor, who found out that even people with a normal weight can be threatened with obesity risks if their abdominal organs were coated with lipids.

The ICRC, worth some five billion crowns, was opened in the complex of St Anne Hospital in Brno last October as a result of cooperation with the Mayo Clinic. It is to serve the research into and treatment of cardiovascular and neurological diseases that are the most frequent causes of death in the Czech Republic.