The role of micro-sleep during MWT in discriminating OSA patients with sleepiness at wheel (SW+).

We performed a perspective study to evaluate the role of MS during MWT in discriminating OSA patients with SW or sleepiness related near-misses accident (NMA). We enrolled 69 consecutive OSA patients (21F, mean age 51.2±11.9 yrs;AHI 36.4±27.4;ESS 9.6±4.6) that underwent MWT after the diagnostic PSG: 62.3% of patients reported EDS, 53.6% SW and 19.1% NMA. Table 1 shows the mean sleep latency at MWT, the mean MS latency, the mean number of MS during MWT separately for patients with or without EDS, SW and NMA, respectively. Of interest, excluding from the analysis the retired subjects, number of MS during MWT was associated to an increasing risk of SW (OR1.2, IC 1.02-1.41;p=0.031). However, when the presence of EDS was included this association disappeared. These preliminary data seems to suggest that MS detection during MWT is an useful tool in the evaluation of patients with SW. However, more data are required to determine the specific role of MS in the assessment of patients without EDS.