Institute for Continuing Education

Split Night Polysomnography

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Define the term “obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)”.
• Identify the current reference standard for evaluating sleepdisordered breathing.
• Define the term “split-night polysomnography”.
• Identify the advantages of split-night vs. full night evaluation.
• Identify the differences between split-night vs. full night evaluation.
• Identify the instances when full night evaluation is more appropriate than split-night studies.

Course Information

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder associated with serious health consequences, increased health-care utilization, and economic burden. With greater public and medical attention to sleep disorders, the volume of referrals for sleep studies over the last decade has increased by approximately 12-fold. Despite the steep growth of infrastructure to diagnose and treat OSA, access to such services remains a sizeable problem, and demand overwhelms capacity. To expedite diagnosis of sleep apnea and prescription of treatment, one strategy adopted by sleep specialists is to employ split-night polysomnography, a strategy that encompasses both diagnosis of OSA and initiation of positive pressure therapy in a single night.

The current reference standard for evaluating sleep-disordered breathing is polysomnography. However, it is by no means the ultimate “gold standard.” Polysomnography is subject to error involved with data measurement, artifact, and interpretation. Additionally, polysomnographic testing may misclassify patients based on night-tonight variability, a well-recognized phenomenon.