Evaluation of the LEOSound-Monitor® for standardized detection of wheezing and chough in childhood

Children with asthma usually suffer from nocturnal wheezing and coughing. Parents often underestimate these nighttime respiratory symptoms. The LEOSound-Monitor ® could provide an opportunity for the standardized quantification of such symptoms, especially in young children. The system works like a 9long-term stethoscope9. Breathing sounds are recorded by bio-acoustical sensors, analyzed and evaluated with regard to wheezing and coughing sounds. The aim of this study was to systematically investigate the feasibility of the nocturnal application of the LEOSound-Monitor ® in young children. A secondary objective was to determine the correlation between software-based analysis and the manual assessment by a specialist in pediatric pneumology. Up to now we investigated 40 children (age 1-16 years). We achieved high quality recordings of continuous eight-hour measurements in 33 children (83 %). We had sensor displacements in four children (10 %) and premature quitting due to decline of sensors by three children (7 %). We found a high correlation between automatic and manual assessment for both wheezing (r > 0.9) and coughing (r > 0.8). The LEOSound-Monitor ® provides a feasible solution for the standardized detection and objective quantification of respiratory sound events (e.g. wheezing and coughing) in children. Thus, it is a reasonable expansion of the conventional repertoire of diagnostics. These data provide the basis for an age-adapted optimization of the automatic assessment.