Abstract
The reference for recording respiratory efforts in the diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing is esophageal pressure (Pes). Pes allows differentiation of obstructive and central events and the quantitative determination of respiratory effort. Due to the invasive nature, Pes is not suitable for routine clinical practice in a sleep laboratory and is not tolerated by all patients.
A new technology PneaVoX (CIDELEC, France) combining a microphone and a pressure sensor is tested in sleep laboratory against polysomnography (PSG) and Pes. PSG is evaluated by two scorers.
33 patients were tested with the new sensor and PSG. In 9 patients had Pes in addition. The evaluation was based on 4103 apneas that were detected from thermistor and nasal cannula. Of these 2043 were obstructive, 1644 were mixed and 416 were central apnea events.
Mean age of patients was 52.8 ± 10.2 years and the mean BMI was 30.1 ± 5.1 kg / m2. Apnea classification based on suprasternal pressure correlated significantly with the evaluation of the reference signals (Pes, respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) belts) for obstructive apnea (r = 0.99, p <0.0001) and central apnea (r = 0.96, p <0.0001). Apnea sensitivity and specificity based on suprasternal pressure is comparable to RIP belts. Sensitivity for obstructive apneas were 98.3% / 98.8% for suprasternal pressure/RIP belts. Corresponding specificities were 79.8% / 66.8% for suprasternal pressure/RIP belts.
In conclusion the new sensor gives reliable differentiation of apneas in practice. This method is of great importance in the current debate on the distinction of obstructive and central apneas (Boudewins, Sleep 1997 Luo, Chest 2009).
- Copyright ©the authors 2016