The use of portable monitoring for sleep apnea diagnosis in adults

Due to increasing demand for sleep services, there has been growing interest in ambulatory models of care for patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The implementation of alternative approaches to the current management by full polysomnography (PSG) in the sleep laboratory is necessary for diagnosing this syndrome due to the high cost of full-night PSG. A good alternative option for OSA diagnosis is portable monitoring (PM), which is known for its accuracy, ease of management and lower cost when compared with full PSG. PM has not been well validated for OSA diagnosis in patients with medical comorbidities or in elderly individuals and children. PM may be recommended as an alternative method to PSG for patients with high clinical risk for OSA. In the present review, we describe the use of PM for OSA diagnosis and evaluate the current progress, costs, limitations and applications of these devices in various groups of patients, particularly for patients with comorbid diseases.