Timetable and Organization

The action is planned for four years. The Management Committee will meet as soon as the programme starts.

Starting point: First meeting of the Management Committee (MC).
Definition of the aims: directory, workshops, scientific cooperation, guidelines for diagnostic services.
The MC Chair will aggregate all the information provided by MC members and will assemble the directory of the European labs and scientists involved in research on cardiovascular complications of OSAS. The directory will appear on a web page dedicated to this COST Action and aimed at spreading information on it. The MC Chair will be in charge of updating the directory, communicating the workshops which will be organized and the documents/guidelines produced by the COST network.

Based upon an inventory of the activities and interests of the participating groups, the initial meeting of the MC will specify the clinical and research areas described in the Scientific programme, and will indicate how (what by whom) implementation will take. The activities will be organized under three major Working Groups (WGs) on:

WG 1: Cardiovascular complications in OSAS: pathogenetic mechanisms and markers of increased cardiovascular risk.

WG 2: Daytime somnolence and medico-legal implications of OSAS.

WG 3: Epidemiology and genetics of OSAS.

0.5-1 year
General meeting of WG1 on cardiovascular complications of OSAS ("reference" WG): set-up of a common protocol and planning of
?clinical follow-up of OSAS
?patients; identification of investigator subgroups studying mechanisms of cardiovascular complications (e.g., inflammation, oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, metabolic derangements, autonomic dysfunction).

First meeting of the WG2 on daytime somnolence and medicolegal implications of OSAS.

First meeting of the WG3 on epidemiology and genetics of OSAS.

Communication on the web site of all the proposals and news from the working groups.

First release of the directory.

1.5-2 years

Integrated Meeting of all WGs: progress report on clinical follow-up and research activities. Discussion on progress in the development of clinical guidelines on diagnostic and medico-legal aspects of OSAS.
Release of updated directory.

Communication on the web site of the agenda of future activities.

2.5-3 years
Meeting of the each of the WGs: release of progress reports.

Integrated Meeting of all WGs: discussion of progress reports? and planning for release of guidelines.

Release of updated directory.


3-4 years
Meeting of WG1: Release of guidelines on diagnostic protocols for cardiovascular complications in
?OSAS. Statement papers on results, clinical usefulness of identified biomarkers, and future perspectives.
Meeting of WG2: Release of guidelines on medico-legal implications
Meeting of WG3: Statement paper on state of the art of European research on epidemiology and genetics of OSAS and future perspectives.

All these documents will be published in European medical journals dedicated to Respiratory and possibly Cardiovascular Medicine; they will be translated in different languages and further disseminated at the National level (care of National participants).?

Plenary assembly to discuss:
longitudinal data collected during the COST Action, and planning of future actions and continuing clinical follow-up
outcome of research projects and possible future development


The results of the clinical follow-up study and of basic research projects developed during the Action will be published in International journals. A final document summarizing the aims and results of the Action will be published on the website and on journals of different medical specialties (for example Sleep Medicine, Cardiology, Epidemiology), in order to increase the visibility of the Action and spread its results to the medical community.

A summary of the timetable is reported in the figure below. Bars indicate planned meetings of MC (light gray) and WGs (blue, green and pink, respectively).