Comparing methods of respiratory event detection during the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea

Renewed focus on comparative effectiveness research presents a unique opportunity to develop optimal clinical management pathways for patients with obstructive sleep apnea. With this momentum comes the challenge of measuring treatment effect on sleep-disordered breathing, especially in large, multisite studies. In-laboratory polysomnography, the current gold standard sleep assessment of obstructive sleep apnea severity, is costly and imposes significant participant burden. Alternatives include home unattended sleep testing and overnight pulse oximetry recording. Research studies using positive airway pressure treatment have the additional option of using the information recorded by the patient's positive airway pressure device to assess treatment effectiveness. Recent research has shown relatively good agreement between manual identification of residual respiratory events in overnight in-laboratory polysomnography and the automatic event detection utilized in positive airway pressure machines. In addition to assessing the effects of interventions on sleep disordered breathing, obstructive sleep apnea-related comparative effectiveness studies need to assess the impact of the interventions on patient burden, cost of therapy, timeliness of care, improved quality of life and other clinically relevant outcomes.