CPAP therapy boosts cardiac surgery outcomes

"A few hours of postoperative treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) may help improve outcomes in patients who've had heart surgery, finds a new study. CPAP is commonly used to treat sleep apnea. The study, published in the May issue of Chest, included 232 cardiac surgery patients who received standard postoperative treatment - including 10 minutes of CPAP every four hours - and 236 patients who received prophylactic CPAP for at least six hours after surgery." - Health Day