Understanding Sleep Architecture Can Aid Diagnosis

Autonomic measures showed the patients had mean respiratory events of 31.9 per hour per subject, and had mean desaturation of 19.4 per hour per subject. The RT-MRI showed the specific location of airway obstructions with a high degree of precision, Dr. Barrera said.

During an obstructive event, the real-time MRI coincided with the real respiratory event, he said. The obstruction coincided with respiratory and desaturation events. Importantly, sleep MRI during natural sleep targets the actual site of obstruction and the potential of predicting successful surgical outcomes, he said.

The advantage of this approach is that by seeing dynamic obstruction in real time, the etiology of obstruction is elucidated. Static MRI is performed in an awake patient and doesn’t show movement, while sleep MRI is performed in a sleeping patient showing movement in real time. The site of obstruction is clearly seen, he said.

Surgeons would know exactly what happens when an obstructive event occurs, and this would help with planning the surgery. There could well be a role for sleep MRI in OSA patients.

©2008 The Triological Society