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

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.