AUTHOR=Braghiroli Alberto , Kuller David , Godio Massimo , Rossato Fabio , Sacco Carlo , Morrone Elisa 

TITLE=Validation Study of Airgo, an Innovative Device to Screen Sleep Respiratory Disorders

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.938542

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2022.938542

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=Background. Obstructive sleep apnea affects a consistent percentage of the population and only a minority of patients has been diagnosed and treated because of a discrepancy between resources available for diagnosis and the epidemiology of a disorder possibly affecting nearly one billion people in the world. 
Aim. We conducted a study to compare a standard home respiratory monitoring system (Nox T3) with a novel device (AirgoTM) consisting of an elastic band and a small recorder, light, comfortable for the patient, low-cost complete with an automatic analysis of the data that produces a screening report indicating the type and severity of sleep respiratory disorder. 
Patients and results.  We examined 120 patients, reduced to 118 for technical problems. The mean age of pts (± SD) is 55.7±13 yrs, BMI 27.8±4.3 kg/m2, AHI 22±22 events/hr. Patients belong to all the different severity rates of OSA, with a percentage of them classified as free of respiratory disorders. The AirgoTM showed an excellent agreement with the results of the gold standard, reporting high levels of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predicted value and accuracy.

Conclusions. AirgoTM is a reliable tool to screen patients with suspected sleep respiratory disorders, well tolerated by the patient based on a totally automatic analysis and reporting system, leading to more efficient use of doctor’s and clinician’s time and resources and extending the opportunity to diagnose more possible candidates for treatment.