Performance of Wrist-Worn Pulse Oximeter for the Screening of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

Introduction: A sleep apnea monitor (BM2000A) is a wrist-worn device that measures oxygen saturation and pulse rate during sleep. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the watch-like BM2000A for screening obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Materials and methods: 102 patients complaining of sleep breathing disorders were included; 81% were men and 19% were women. All participants underwent overnight simultaneous polysomnography (PSG) and BM2000A sleep monitoring. The number of apneas and hypopneas, apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), percentage of time spent with oxygen saturation under 90%, average oxygen saturation, lowest oxygen saturation, and duration of sleep were computed by the BM2000A and PSG. Then, these parameters were compared to validate the BM2000A.

Results: All parameters, measured with BM2000A, had a good correlation (r ≥ 0.6, p < 0.0001) with PSG-derived indexes, except for sleep time (r = 0.19, p = 0.061) and hypopnea index (r = 0.4, p < 0.0001). AHI had the strongest correlation (r = 0.87, p < 0.0001). The mean difference between AHI values calculated with PSG and wrist-worn pulse oximeter (WPO) was -17.66 events/h (95% CI: -50.39 to 15.06). In AHI ≥ 5, BM2000A had 90.7% sensitivity, 100% specificity, 91.2% accuracy, and 0.994 area under the curve. Using AHI ≥ 5, ≥ 15, and ≥30 as the screening criteria, optimal WPO-AHI cutoffs to improve the screening accuracy were 3.10, 8.92, and 13.05.

Conclusions: BM2000A-derived results properly correlate with PSG and can provide OSA screening with good sensitivity and specificity.