Screening obstructive sleep apnea–hypopnea syndrome from snorers in children by heart rate variability analysis

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the application of time-and frequency-domain analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) to screen obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) from snorers in children. Snoring children who were more than 3 years old were recruited and simultaneously underwent standard polysomnography (PSG) and 24 h ambulatory electrocardiography. The HRV variables of the two groups were compared, and a threshold value of the most significant variables was determined to obtain better separation power between OSAHS and non-OSAHS conditions. PSG was made as a gold standard to evaluate the capacity of HRV analysis to screen OSAHS from snorers in children. PSG results showed that 58 children manifested OSAHS and 37 were non-OSAHS snorers. LF/HF n ≥ 0.845 has the highest sensitivity of screening OSAHS from snorers with limited specificity, so the use of this ratio should not be overestimated.

Reported Symptoms of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in a Group of Saudi Children

“…The gold standard test for establishing the presence and severity of SBD in children is overnight polysomnography (PSG), however, it is impractical for several reasons, the substantial inconvenience, lack of access, time, and staff costing of PSG recordings may delay routing evaluation (20,21) .…”