Lack of night-to-night variability of sleep-disordered breathing measured during home monitoring.
The apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) is an important objective measure used in the diagnosis of sleep-disordered breathing. In affected patients, the AHI has been reported to vary across successive nights. We conducted a multi-channel home sleep study on 44 patients with sleep-disordered breathing to determine whether the AHI does indeed vary and, if so, to quantify the degree of night-to-night variability. Of this group, 23 patients were tested for 3 consecutive nights and 21 were tested for 2 consecutive nights. Among the group as a whole, we found no statistically significant change in AHI across nights, although we did identify variations among individual patients.
Davidson
Terence M
TM
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California, San Diego, USA. tdavidson@ucsd.edu
Gehrman
Philip
P
Ferreyra
Henry
H
D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes