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Acoustic Estimation of Neck Fluid Volume

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Abstract

Recently we showed that fluid accumulation in the neck can narrow the upper airway (UA) and increase its collapsibility, which may exacerbate obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). However, the available methods for measuring neck fluid volume (NFV) are inconvenient and expensive. Narrowing of the UA due to fluid accumulation could change acoustic characteristics of respiratory sounds. In this study, we developed a novel approach for non-invasive estimation of NFV from acoustic measurements. Twenty-eight healthy subjects lay awake and supine for 90 min while NFV and tracheal sounds were measured simultaneously using bioimpedance and a microphone, respectively. Sets of tracheal sound features were calculated in time and frequency domains and were reduced using methods based on regression and minimum-redundancy-maximum-relevance. The resulting feature sets were applied to a multi-linear regression and a mixture-density neural network to estimate NFV. Our results show very small relative estimation errors of 1.25 and 3.23%, based on the regression and neural network methods, respectively. These results support the practical application of this technology in diagnosing fluid accumulation in the neck and its possible contributions to the pathogenesis of OSA.

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Abbreviations

AHI:

Apnea-hypopnea index

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

BMI:

Body mass index, kg/m2

MFCC:

Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients

mRMR:

Minimum-redundancy-maximum-relevance

NC:

Neck circumference

NFV:

Neck fluid volume

OSA:

Obstructive sleep apnea

RAPT:

Robust algorithm for pitch tracking

RPDE:

Recurrence period density entropy

UA:

Upper airway

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Acknowledgement

The research was supported by funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) operating Grant MOP-82731. A. Yadollahi was supported by Fellowships from the Mitacs Elevate program and a CIHR Training Grant in Sleep and Biological Rhythms. F. Rudzicz was supported by research funding from University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and a Discovery award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. S. Mahallati was supported by research funding from University Health Network-Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. M. Coimbra was supported by a grant from the Science Without Borders program between Brazil and Canada. T.D. Bradley was supported by the Clifford Nordal Chair in Sleep Apnea and Rehabilitation Research.

Conflict of interests

No benefits in any form have been or will be received from a commercial party related directly or indirectly to the subject of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Health Network, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Room 12-106, 550 University Ave, Toronto, ON, M5G 2A2, Canada

    A. Yadollahi, F. Rudzicz, S. Mahallati, M. Coimbra & T. D. Bradley

  2. Institute of Biomaterial and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    A. Yadollahi & S. Mahallati

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    F. Rudzicz & M. Coimbra

  4. Centre for Sleep Medicine and Circadian Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    T. D. Bradley

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  1. A. Yadollahi
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  2. F. Rudzicz
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  3. S. Mahallati
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  4. M. Coimbra
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  5. T. D. Bradley
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Yadollahi.

Additional information

Associate Editor Merryn Tawhai oversaw the review of this article.

Experiments were performed in the Sleep Research Laboratory, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network, Toronto, Canada.

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Yadollahi, A., Rudzicz, F., Mahallati, S. et al. Acoustic Estimation of Neck Fluid Volume. Ann Biomed Eng 42, 2132–2142 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-014-1083-8

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