Prediction of Oxygen Desaturation by Using Sound Data From a Noncontact Device: A Proof-of-Concept Study

Prediction of the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) from breathing sounds during sleep could be used to prescreen for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). In addition, the oxygen desaturation index (ODI) is a known risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease in OSA patients. This study focused on estimation of ODI from a noncontact manner from sleep breathing sounds.

Retrospective study.

Patients who visited the sleep center due to snoring or sleep apnea underwent polysomnography in lab overnight. Sound recordings were made during polysomnography using a microphone. After noise reduction, the sound data were segmented into 5 seconds windows and features were extracted. Binary classification and regression analyses were performed to estimate the ODI during sleep (model 1). This was re-tested after inclusion of body mass index (BMI) and age as additional features (model 2: BMI only, model 3: BMI and age).

We included 116 patients. The mean age and AHI of all patients were 50.4 ± 16.7 years and 23.0 ± 24.0 events/hr. In binary classification, for ODI cutoff values of 5, 15, and 30 events/hr, the areas under the curve were 0.88, 0.93, 0.91, respectively, and accuracies were 85.34, 86.21, and 87.07, respectively. In regression analysis, the correlation coefficient and mean absolute error were 0.80 and 9.60 events/hr, respectively. In models 2 and 3, the correlation coefficient and mean absolute error were 0.82, 9.44 events/hr and 0.81, 9.6 events/hr, respectively.

Prediction of ODI from sleep sound seems to be feasible. Additional clinical feature such as BMI may increase overall predictability.

4 Laryngoscope, 132:901-905, 2022.