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Innovatice Methods in the Diagnosis of Sleep Apnea
Kostlivý, Tomáš ; Slouka, David (advisor) ; Kučera, Radek (referee) ; Šlapák, Ivo (referee)
With the development of diagnostics and the whole field of somnology in the 1970s, the diagnosis of sleep apnea was defined among sleep disorders. Obstructive sleep apnea is its most common type with the highest prevalence, affecting up to 1/3 of the adult population. The disease is characterized by obstruction of the upper airways during sleep, leading to apneic pauses. The final consequence is the development of a number of comorbidities mainly of the cardiovascular system. Not yet fully clarified pathophysiological mechanisms include oxidative stress, inflammatory processes, endothelial dysfunction and others. Diagnosis is multidisciplinary, involving otorhinolaryngological examination of the upper respiratory tract and sleep monitoring, which is demanding in terms of technical equipment, time and experience. Therapy is predominantly conservative, involving lifestyle measures, weight reduction and continuous positive airway pressure therapy. Surgical therapy consists of anatomical widening or removal of the obstruction at various levels of the upper airway. The difficulty of diagnosis has encouraged the search for alternative diagnostic methods that could be used for screening the disease or monitoring the effect of treatment. One possibility is to find a sufficiently sensitive and specific...
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