Diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome Using Overnight Oximetry Measurement

Objectives: The gold standard for diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is nocturnal polysomnography (NPSG). This is rather expensive and somewhat inconvenient, however, and consequently simpler and cheaper alternatives to NPSG have been proposed. Oximetry is appealing because of its widespread availability and ease of application. In this study, we have evaluated whether oximetry alone can be used to diagnose or screen OSAS. The diagnostic performance of an analysis algorithm using arterial oxygen saturation () base on 'dip index', mean of , and CT90 (the percentage of time spent at , and CT90 with diagnosis from NPSG. In each case, sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values of oximetry data were calculated. Results: Thirty-nine patients out of fifty-six patients were diagnosed as OSAS with NPSG. Mean RDI was 17.5, mean was 94.9%, and mean CT90 was 5.1%. The dip index [4%-4sec] was most linearly correlated with RDI (r=0.861). With dip index [4%-4sec] as diagnostic criteria, we obtained sensitivity of 0.95, specificity of 0.71, positive predictive value of 0.88, and negative predictive value of 0.86. Using mean , we obtained sensitivity of 0.95, specificity of 0.41, positive predictive value of 0.79, and negative predictive value of 0.78. Using , we obtained sensitivity of 0.28, specificity of 1.00, positive predictive value of 1.00, and negative predictive value of 0.38. Conclusions: The dip index [4%-4sec] and mean obtained from nocturnal oximetry data are helpful in diagnosis of OSAS. CT905% can be also used in excluding OSAS.