Suprasternal pressure recording and respiratory inductance plethysmography for respiratory effort evaluation in patients with sleep-disordered breathing

Objectives: Respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) is a common approach for respiratory effort measurement in sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). Nevertheless, the use of RIP could have limited precision, e.g. due to sensor displacement. That is why suprasternal pressure (SSP) monitoring might be an alternative in diagnosis of SDB. The aim of the study was to use SSP for the visual characterization of respiratory events during sleep and to compare results to those found by RIP. Methods: In OSA patients, one-night SSP recording using the PneaVoX sensor (Cidelec, France) was done in parallel to polysomnography (PSG). Apneas were classified visually as obstructive (OA), central (CA), and mixed (MA) based on SSP and on RIP by two trained scores (S1/S2). The sensitivity and specificity of results from SSP compared to RIP were calculated. Results: Synchronous recordings of SSP and PSG were analyzed from n=34 SDB patients (BMI 30±5kg/m²; AHI 34±24/h). AHI based on PSG was correlated with those from SSP (r=0.94, p˂0.01). Respiratory events were scored by scorers S1/S2 mostly as OA or MA with SSP (92.7/93.1%) and with RIP (92.3/92.1%). Sensitivity of SSP in apnea characterization with reference to RIP was 91.5/92.3% (S1/S2) for OA, 82.7/76.2% (S1/S2) for CA, and 87.4/79.9% (S1/S2) for MA. Discussion: Results: reveal that apnea characterization using SSP and using RIP belts are highly concordant. These findings were independently found by two scorers. In summary, it seems that the PneaVoX sensor provides a reliable SSP signal for the classification of respiratory events in SDB patients and could become an additional tool in clinical practice.