title: Lack of night-to-night variability of sleep-disordered breathing measured during home monitoring.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California, San Diego, USA. tdavidson@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Terence M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gehrman
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ferreyra
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes