Validation Performance of Screening Tools for Predicting Obstructive Sleep Apnea Among Chinese Patients Undergoing...

Area of Science:

• Bariatric Surgery
• Sleep Medicine
• Medical Screening

Background:

• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common in bariatric surgery patients, potentially increasing risks.
• The effectiveness of standard OSA screening tools in this specific population is not well-established.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the predictive performance of six OSA screening questionnaires (B-APNEIC, STOP-BANG, GOAL, No-Apnea, NoSAS, NO-OSAS) in a Chinese bariatric cohort.
• To identify the most effective screening tool for OSA in this patient group.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study using data from the Chinese Obesity and Metabolic Surgery (COMES) database (2021-2025).
• Six OSA screening tools were assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and Youden index.
• OSA severity was categorized by Apnea-hypopnea index (AHI): any OSA (≥5/h), moderate-to-severe OSA (≥15/h), and severe OSA (≥30/h).

Main Results:

• 1740 patients (39.2% male, median age 31.0 years, median BMI 38.9 kg/m²) were analyzed.
• 77.1% of patients had OSA, with 49.9% having moderate-to-severe OSA and 33.0% having severe OSA.
• STOP-BANG and NO-OSAS showed comparable performance for detecting any and moderate-to-severe OSA (AUC ~0.73-0.75), outperforming other tools.
• NO-OSAS demonstrated superior performance in identifying severe OSA (AUC 0.75).

Conclusions:

• STOP-BANG and NO-OSAS exhibit similar effectiveness in screening for any and moderate-to-severe OSA among Chinese bariatric patients.
• The NO-OSAS questionnaire may offer improved accuracy for detecting severe obstructive sleep apnea in this population.