Association between hidradenitis suppurativa and obstructive sleep apnea: A retrospective cohort study using the TriNetX dataset

June 2, 2025

This plain-language research summary was generated by AI, courtesy of HS Simplified.

AI Generated Content Verified By: Alexandra Charrow, M.D. | Mass General Brigham

Association between hidradenitis suppurativa and obstructive sleep apnea: A retrospective cohort study using the TriNetX dataset

A 2024 study highlights a significant link between hidradenitis suppurativa (HS)—a chronic skin inflammation—and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a condition where relaxed throat muscles cause interrupted breathing during sleep. Utilizing a vast health record database, researchers found HS patients have a notably higher risk of OSA. As both conditions involve systemic inflammation, this research encourages rethinking OSA screening in HS patients, aiming to mitigate the potential health impacts of undiagnosed sleep apnea.

Is There a Link Between Hidradenitis Suppurativa and Sleep Apnea?

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a condition where a person’s throat muscles relax too much during sleep, causing their airway to get blocked. This leads to pauses in breathing, frequent waking up at night, feeling tired during the day, and trouble thinking clearly. Around 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. have OSA.

Some scientists have wondered if OSA is connected to another disease called hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), which is a skin condition that causes painful lumps, swelling, and pus-filled bumps in areas like the underarms and groin. Both HS and OSA involve inflammation (when the body’s immune system is very active), but doctors don’t routinely check people with HS for OSA because there’s not enough proof of a strong link.

The Study: Comparing People With and Without HS

Researchers used a huge set of electronic health records (EHRs) from the TriNetX network in the United States to find adults with HS and compare them to adults without HS. They only included people who had at least two doctor visits confirming they had HS, and they also made sure to include a similar group of adults who just went for regular check-ups and never had HS.

The scientists looked for people who also had a diagnosis of OSA, using special medical codes to identify these conditions. They carefully matched people in the two groups by age, sex, and race to make the comparison fair. They also adjusted for other things that make OSA and HS more likely, like obesity and smoking.

What Did They Find?

Out of almost 97,000 people with HS, about 13.5% also had OSA. In the group without HS, only 9.3% had OSA. This means people with HS were 50% more likely to have OSA compared to those without HS. Even after adjusting for other health problems that can cause OSA, people with HS still had a 46% higher risk of having sleep apnea than those without HS.

Why Does This Matter?

OSA can make people very tired and can harm their heart and brain if untreated. If people with HS are more likely to have OSA, doctors might need to ask about sleep problems more often in these patients, even if they aren’t overweight. Early treatment for OSA can help people feel better and avoid serious health issues.

Limitations of the Study

Like all research, this study had some limitations. Because it looked back at old medical records, it can’t prove that HS causes OSA—just that they’re linked. Some important information, like whether people smoked or how much pain they had, was missing or not always recorded. Also, other health conditions that could affect the results were not included.

Even so, this was one of the largest studies ever done on this topic, using data from millions of people, making the results important for doctors and patients to consider.

What’s Next?

The experimenters suggest that doctors might want to screen, or check, for sleep apnea in people with HS, especially since OSA is treatable and can greatly improve a person’s life. However, more research is needed to find out if checking every person with HS for sleep apnea is the right thing to do.

Author(s)

Mihir K. Patil, Thomas Z. Rohan, Goranit Sakunchotpanit, Kaushik P. Venkatesh, Sofia Milosavljevic, Vinod E. Nambudiri, Alexandra Charrow

Read Original Paper

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12266547/