Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Many laboratories have large numbers of patients with suspected obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) waiting to be tested. We assessed the use of simple clinical data to detect those patients with an apnea index or =20. A BMI or =20. Combining these variables improved accuracy but resulted in smaller groups; a cut-off of ESS or =20. Thus there is a tradeoff; the more variables used, the greater the accuracy but the smaller the percent of cases selected to have low AI. However, in laboratories with hundreds of patients waiting to be tested, any procedure better than chance to help prioritize patients seems worthwhile.
Pouliot et al. (Sat,) studied this question.