The interpretation of compact polysomnography/polygraphy in sleep breathing disorders patients: a validation's study

The Otorhinolaryngologist (ENT) frequently has to deal with OSA or suspicious OSA patients and undergone polysomnography (PSG) or portable monitoring (PM) and should be confident about the quality and consistency of the polysomnographic diagnosis. The main polysomnographic traces compressed in a unique epoch, defined as compact PSG/PM (CP), could represent an efficient tool to confirm the quality of PSG/PM Sleep Breathing Disorders diagnosis. This is a validation's study of a CP interpretation's method, analyzing the learning curve, the level of diagnostic accuracy, and the inter-operator agreement in interpreting the CP pattern between a group of ENT specialists not skilled in PSG/PM scoring, but managing SBD patients during daily practice. Seven ENT specialists have been enrolled in the study. 50 CP traces (ranging from normal to all main SBD patterns) have been showed to each participant for the interpretation and scoring process, before and after a 2-h theoretical-practical interactive lesson, focusing on the recognition of the four main oximetric patterns on CP traces (normal, phasic, prolonged, and overlap patterns).

Results: before and after the theoretical-practical interactive lesson, the whole diagnostic accuracy in interpreting the 50 CP has been reported improved from 0.12 to 0.80 (median 0.52) to 0.82-0.96 (median 0.92) (p = 0.006) and the inter-scorers' agreement showed a kappa value increased from of 0.18 to 0.75 (p < 0.0001). A complete clinical diagnostic evaluation is essential in OSA patients and the ENT specialist should be concerned to verify if the patient, suitable for surgical therapy, is affected really by an isolated form of OSA. The CP interpretation allows a checking of the proper nosographic SBD framework and could be significantly important for all ENT specialists not skilled in PSG/PM scoring, but managing SBD patients during daily practice. The data reported in our validation's study showed that the CP interpretation's method is easy to apply, with a rapid learning curve. The level of diagnostic accuracy is high with a high inter-scorer agreement in interpreting the CP patterns.