Predicting Cardiovascular Outcomes Using the Respiratory Event Desaturation Transient Area Derived from Overnight Sleep Studies

A new method for calculation of an overnight oximetry signal metric which is predictive of cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes in individuals undergoing an overnight sleep test is presented. The metric – the respiratory event desaturation transient area (REDTA) - quantifies the desaturation associated with respiratory events. Data from the Sleep Heart Health Study, which includes overnight oximetry signals and long-term CVD outcomes, was used to develop and test the parameter. Performance of the REDTA parameter was assessed using Cox proportional hazard ratios and compared to established metrics of hypoxia. Results show that hazard ratios in adjusted Cox analysis for predicting cardiovascular death using REDTA are up to 1.90 (95%CI: 1.22-2.96) which compares with the best of the established metrics. A big advantage of our metric compared to other high performing metrics is its ease of computation.