Editorial

Can we say that a disease is contagious if patients who die from it, in the act of dying, cause the deaths of others? In Wisconsin (USA), a group of 602 civil servants, ranging from 30 to 60 years of age, were evaluated. Among those, 24 % of the males and 9 % of the females were diagnosed with sleep-disordered breathing, defined as five or more attacks of apnea or hypopnea per hour of sleep. In a subgroup of that sample, 4 % of the males and 2 % of the females presented sleep-disordered breathing together with the main symptom of sleep disturbance (excessive daytime sleepiness), which provided the elements for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS).(1) The prevalence of OSAHS increases with age.(2) Although it is known that patients diagnosed with OSAHS are from two(3) to eight times(4