Evaluates modified scoring for sleep apnea diagnosis in adults, indicating improved accuracy and cost savings.
Introduction Home sleep apnea testing (HSAT) improves access and lowers cost, but diagnostic accuracy remains limited. Sensitivity/specificity for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA ) have been reported to be 80%/74%, with lower accuracy in mild disease. HSATs lack electroencephalography (EEG) and therefore the ability to score arousal-based events per AASM Recommended polysomnogram (PSG) scoring criteria. Alternative HSAT scoring criteria to improve concurrence with gold-standard PSG have been explored. We recently proposed modified scoring in which hyperpneas following qualifying hypopneas act as surrogate arousals. This enables scoring without EEG , potentially improving diagnostic performance. In this study, we prospectively evaluated this modified scoring method by performing simultaneous in-lab PSG and HSAT recordings and comparing results. Methods Patients undergoing clinically indicated PSG at our sleep center (Aug 2025–Feb 2026) also wore type 3 HSAT equipment . Recordings were time-synchronized to compare respiratory event detection between devices. Three AHI values were calculated: (1) gold-standard PSG (pAHI), (2) conventional HSAT (cAHI), and (3) modified HSAT scoring using hyperpneas after flow limitations as surrogate respiratory arousals (mAHI). Results Seventeen patients completed the protocol (23% female; age 20–57 years; pAHI 1.8–80.9/hr; BMI 20–44.5). Modified scoring improved accuracy compared to cAHI using the absolute difference in AHI from pAHI (mean absolute difference between pAHI and mAHI = 4.98/hr (SD=5.63) vs mean absolute difference between pAHI and cAHI = 7.96/hr (SD=8.59), p=0.043 for calculated paired difference). PSG agreement improved (mean mAHI difference from pAHI = -1.65/hr, p = 0.374) compared to cAHI, which significantly underestimated AHI (mean cAHI difference from pAHI = -7.28/hr, p = 0.0049). Compared to pAHI, cAHI changed OSA diagnosis in 2 (11.8%) and OSA severity in 7 (41.2%) whereas mAHI changed OSA diagnosis in 1 (5.9%) and severity in 4 (23.5%). Conclusion Modified HSAT scoring demonstrated superior alignment with PSG and mitigated AHI underestimation seen with desaturation-only scoring. Incorporating physiologically relevant respiratory events into HSAT interpretation may narrow the performance gap between home and in-lab testing and offer meaningful cost savings by negating the requirement for follow-up sleep studies or reducing the number of follow-up PSG studies needed. Additional studies are indicated to further validate these findings. Support (if any)
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