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Utility of the psychomotor vigilance task in screening for obstructive sleep apnoea

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Abstract

Purpose

The study aimed to assess the performance of the PVT in patients with suspected OSA, evaluate its role in population screening for OSA.

Methods

The NoSAS, STOP-Bang, ESS scores and PVT tests were performed after suspected OSA patients’ admission, followed by PSG. Then we compared the PVT results, calculated the sensitivity, specificity and ROC curve of PVT, and analyzed the accuracy of STOP-Bang and NoSAS questionnaire combined with PVT in predicting OSA.

Results

A total of 308 patients were divided into four groups based on AHI: primary snoring (2.74 ± 1.4 events/h, n = 37); mild OSA (9.96 ± 3.25 events/h, n = 65); moderate OSA (22.41 ± 4.48 events/h, n = 76); and, severe OSA (59.42 ± 18.37 events/h, n = 130). There were significant differences in PVT lapses (p < 0.001) and reaction time (RT, p = 0.03) among the four groups. The PVT lapses and RT were positively correlated with AHI (p < 0.001) and ODI (p < 0.001), and negatively correlated with LSpO2 (p < 0.001). When diagnosing OSA (AHI ≥ 5 events/h), the AUCs of PVT, ESS, STOP-Bang, and NoSAS were 0.679, 0.579, 0.727, and 0.653, respectively; the AUCs of STOP-Bang and NoSAS combined with PVT increased. After combined PVT, the diagnostic specificity of STOP-Bang and NoSAS at nodes with AHI ≥ 5, ≥ 15 and ≥ 30 events/h increased to varying degrees.

Conclusion

Patients with OSA exhibited impairment in the PVT, and the combination of the PVT and STOP-Bang or NoSAS scores can improve the diagnostic efficacy and specificity for OSA.

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Data availability

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Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: 1. Shanghai Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission (Grant No.23ZR1425400). 2. Shanghai Municipal Key Clinical Specialty, China. (NO. shslczdzk00801). 3. Minhang District Natural Science Foundation, Shanghai. (No.2022M11Z086). 4. Eye & ENT Hospital’s double priority project A (YGJC026 to Dr Wei and Dr Huang).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Jingru Ma, Xihe Qiu, and Lijie Sun contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Jingru Ma, Lijie Sun, Ning Cong, Chunsheng Wei & Jingjing Huang

  2. Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Xihe Qiu & Yingchen Wei

  3. Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital of Fudan University, Room 205, Building 10, No. 83, Fenyang Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 200031, People’s Republic of China

    Chunsheng Wei & Jingjing Huang

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  1. Jingru Ma
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Contributions

JM made substantial contributions to design the study, and wrote the paper; XQ and YW offerred PVT software; LS analyzed data; NC and CW involved in designing the study. JH collected the specimen and critically revised the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chunsheng Wei or Jingjing Huang.

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Conflict of interest

The authors do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted.

Ethical approval

Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the EENT Hospital of Fudan University (No.2022140) and the study was registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2300069223). Informed consent was obtained from all patients before the procedure.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on sleep apnea syndrome. Guest editors: Manuele Casale, Rinaldi Vittorio.

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Ma, J., Qiu, X., Sun, L. et al. Utility of the psychomotor vigilance task in screening for obstructive sleep apnoea. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 281, 3115–3123 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-023-08373-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-023-08373-3

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