Clinical-level screening of sleep apnea syndrome with single-lead ECG alone is achievable using machine learning with appropriate time windows.

Purpose: To establish a simple and noninvasive screening test for sleep apnea (SA) that imposes less burden on potential patients. The specific objective of this study was to verify the effectiveness of past and future single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) data from SA occurrence sites in improving the estimation accuracy of SA and sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) using machine learning.

Methods: The Apnea-ECG dataset comprising 70 ECG recordings was used to construct various machine-learning models. The time window size was adjusted based on the accuracy of SA detection, and the performance of SA detection and SAS diagnosis (apnea‒hypopnea index ≥ 5 was considered SAS) was compared.

Results: Using ECG data from a few minutes before and after the occurrence of SAs improved the estimation accuracy of SA and SAS in all machine learning models. The optimal range of the time window and achieved accuracy for SAS varied by model; however, the sensitivity ranged from 95.7 to 100%, and the specificity ranged from 91.7 to 100%.

Conclusions: ECG data from a few minutes before and after SA occurrence were effective in SA detection and SAS diagnosis, confirming that SA is a continuous phenomenon and that SA affects heart function over a few minutes before and after SA occurrence. Screening tests for SAS, using data obtained from single-lead ECGs with appropriate past and future time windows, should be performed with clinical-level accuracy.