[Reliability of home monitoring with event-recording compared with polysomnography in infants]

Although reliable recognition of hypoxemia, apnea, bradycardia and tachycardia is absolutely necessary for home monitoring, many commercially available home monitors have not been sufficiently tested for their sensitivity. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the home monitor VitaGuard 3000 by comparing it with the manual evaluation of full polysomnography (polysomnographic system Alice 3).

20 infants (11 males; 9 females) aged between 5 and 40 weeks (12.2 +/- 3.5 weeks, median 10.5) and with a gestational age between 29 and 41 weeks (37.7 +/- 6.1 weeks, median 39.0) were tested using both full polysomnography and, simultaneously, the home monitor VitaGuard 3000. The results were evaluated manually and compared.

The monitor system detected 7/51 central apneas, 6/260 desaturations and 7/18 tachycardias. The sensitivity was 13.72% for apnea, 4.23% for desaturation and 38.80% for tachycardia. The reliability of the home monitor for detecting apnea, desaturation and tachycardia was therefore insufficient.

A polysomnographic reliability test should be mandatory for all home monitoring systems prior to commercial introduction.