Department ESAII, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain.
Med Biol Eng Comput. 2012 Apr;50(4):373-81. doi: 10.1007/s11517-012-0885-9. Epub 2012 Mar 10.
Sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (SAHS) is a serious sleep disorder, and snoring is one of its earliest and most consistent symptoms. We propose a new methodology for identifying two distinct types of snores: the so-called non-regular and regular snores. Respiratory sound signals from 34 subjects with different ranges of Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI = 3.7-109.9 h(-1)) were acquired. A total number of 74,439 snores were examined. The time interval between regular snores in short segments of the all night recordings was analyzed. Severe SAHS subjects show a shorter time interval between regular snores (p = 0.0036, AHI cp: 30 h(-1)) and less dispersion on the time interval features during all sleep. Conversely, lower intra-segment variability (p = 0.006, AHI cp: 30 h(-1)) is seen for less severe SAHS subjects. Features derived from the analysis of time interval between regular snores achieved classification accuracies of 88.2 % (with 90 % sensitivity, 75 % specificity) and 94.1 % (with 94.4 % sensitivity, 93.8 % specificity) for AHI cut-points of severity of 5 and 30 h(-1), respectively. The features proved to be reliable predictors of the subjects' SAHS severity. Our proposed method, the analysis of time interval between snores, provides promising results and puts forward a valuable aid for the early screening of subjects suspected of having SAHS.
睡眠呼吸暂停低通气综合征（SAHS）是一种严重的睡眠障碍，而打鼾是其最早和最一致的症状之一。我们提出了一种新的方法来识别两种不同类型的鼾声：所谓的不规则和规则鼾声。从 34 名呼吸暂停低通气指数（AHI=3.7-109.9 h(-1))范围不同的受试者中采集了呼吸声信号。共检查了 74439 次打鼾。分析了整夜记录中短片段中规则打鼾之间的时间间隔。严重 SAHS 患者的规则打鼾之间的时间间隔更短（p=0.0036，AHI cp：30 h(-1))，并且在所有睡眠期间时间间隔特征的离散度更小。相反，对于较轻的 SAHS 患者，会看到较低的段内变异性（p=0.006，AHI cp：30 h(-1))。规则打鼾之间的时间间隔分析得出的特征，对于严重程度的 AHI 切点为 5 和 30 h(-1)，分类准确率分别为 88.2%（敏感性为 90%，特异性为 75%）和 94.1%（敏感性为 94.4%，特异性为 93.8%）。这些特征被证明是受试者 SAHS 严重程度的可靠预测指标。我们提出的方法，即打鼾之间时间间隔的分析，提供了有希望的结果，并为疑似患有 SAHS 的患者的早期筛查提出了有价值的帮助。
