title: Automatic classification of inspiratory flow limitation assessed non-invasively during sleep.
abstract: Detection of inspiratory flow limitation (IFL) is being recognized of increasing importance in order to diagnose pathologies related to sleep disordered breathing. Currently, IFL is usually identified with the help of invasive esophageal pressure measurement, still considered the gold-standard reference to assess respiratory effort. But the invasiveness of esophageal pressure measurement and its impact on sleep discourages its use in clinical routine. In this study, a new noninvasive automatic system is proposed for objective IFL classification. First, an automatic annotation system for IFL based on pressure/flow relationship was developed. Then, classifiers (Support Vector Machines and adaboost classifiers) were trained with these gold-standard references in order to objectively classify breaths non-invasively, solely based on the breaths' flow contours. The new non-invasive automatic classification system seems to be promising, as it achieved a sensitivity of 0.92 and a specificity of 0.89, outperforming prior classification results obtained by human experts.
authors.affiliation: Dept. ESAII, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya and CIBER de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Pau Gargallo 5, 08028, Barcelona, Spain. Christian.Morgentern@upc.edu
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Morgenstern
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jané
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schwaibold
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Randerath
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D001239:Inhalation; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D017286:Polysomnography / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013147:Spirometry / Q000379:methods*