Development of a physiological-based model that uses standard polysomnography and clinical data to predict oral appliance treatment outcomes in obstructive sleep apnea

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Oral appliance (OA) therapy is a well-tolerated alternative to continuous positive airway pressure. However, it is less efficacious. A major unresolved clinical challenge is the inability to accurately predict who will respond to OA therapy. We recently developed a model to estimate obstructive sleep apnea pathophysiological endotypes. This study aimed to apply this physiological-based model to predict OA treatment responses. METHODS: Sixty-two men and women with obstructive sleep apnea (aged 29-71 years) were studied to investigate the efficacy of a novel OA device. An in-laboratory diagnostic followed by an OA treatment efficacy polysomnography were performed. Seven polysomnography variables from the diagnostic study plus age and body mass index were included in our machine-learning-based model to predict OA therapy response according to standard apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) definitions. Initially, the model was trained on data from the first 45 participants using 10-fold cross-validation. A blinded independent validation was then performed for the remaining 17 participants. RESULTS: Mean accuracy of the trained model to predict OA therapy responders vs nonresponders (AHI < 5 events/h) using 10-fold cross-validation was 91% ± 8%. In the independent blinded validation, 100% (AHI < 5 events/h); 59% (AHI < 10 events/h); 71% (50% reduction in AHI); and 82% (50% reduction in AHI to < 20 events/h) of the 17 participants were correctly classified for each of the treatment outcome definitions respectively. CONCLUSIONS: While further evaluation in larger clinical data sets is required, these findings highlight the potential to use routinely collected sleep study and clinical data with machine learning-based approaches underpinned by obstructive sleep apnea endotype concepts to help predict treatment outcomes to OA therapy for people with obstructive sleep apnea. CITATION: Dutta R, Tong BK, Eckert DJ. Development of a physiological-based model that uses standard polysomnography and clinical data to predict oral appliance treatment outcomes in obstructive sleep apnea. J Clin Sleep Med. 2022;18(3):861-870.