Comparison of Portable Monitoring with Laboratory Polysomnography for Diagnosing Sleep-Related Breathing Disorders: Scoring and Interpretation

Cardiopulmonary home sleep testing (HST) devices are tools of verification for diagnosing sleep-related breathing disorders. They can rule-in but not rule-out diagnosis. Types, channels, capabilities, and validation vary widely. Overall recording technique, scoring practices, the types of problems encountered, and interpretation strategies for cardiopulmonary recorders differ greatly from those used in traditional sleep studies. Diagnostic sensitivity with HST is lower than that for polysomnography, largely due to data limitations. Nonetheless, the shortcomings are usually offset by performing home sleep tests only on patients with high pretest probabilities for sleep-disordered breathing.