AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions

Sleep apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders, which, if left untreated, may have severe health consequences in the long term. Many sleep apnea patients remain non-diagnosed due to lacking access to medical tests. In recent years, portable and wearable sensors that measure blood oxygen satur...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nhung H. Hoang, Zilu Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2025-04-01
Series:Frontiers in Digital Health
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1510166/full
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849702826823909376
author Nhung H. Hoang
Zilu Liang
author_facet Nhung H. Hoang
Zilu Liang
author_sort Nhung H. Hoang
collection DOAJ
description Sleep apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders, which, if left untreated, may have severe health consequences in the long term. Many sleep apnea patients remain non-diagnosed due to lacking access to medical tests. In recent years, portable and wearable sensors that measure blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) are becoming common and affordable for daily use, and they open the door for affordable and accessible sleep apnea screening in the context of everyday life. To learn about the advancement in SpO2-based sleep apnea screening, we conducted a survey of published studies. We searched databases including Springer, Science Direct, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore using the keywords “sleep apnea” AND (“SpO2” OR “blood oxygen saturation”) AND (“machine learning” OR “deep learning”). After screening 835 results, we included 31 publications for a full-text review. Analysis shows that SpO2-based sleep apnea screening studies consist of three main categories: (1) individual apnea events detection, (2) apnea-hypopnea index prediction, and (3) apnea severity classification. We found two significant research gaps: a lack of sufficient and diverse publicly available datasets, and the absence of standardized protocols for data collection, signal preprocessing, and model bench marking. Future research should focus on addressing these gaps to enhance the effectiveness and reliability of AI-driven sleep apnea screening methods using SpO2 signals.
format Article
id doaj-art-e5b774f3244e4ba39d126b697d7643e2
institution DOAJ
issn 2673-253X
language English
publishDate 2025-04-01
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format Article
series Frontiers in Digital Health
spelling doaj-art-e5b774f3244e4ba39d126b697d7643e22025-08-20T03:17:31ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Digital Health2673-253X2025-04-01710.3389/fdgth.2025.15101661510166AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directionsNhung H. HoangZilu LiangSleep apnea is one of the most common sleep disorders, which, if left untreated, may have severe health consequences in the long term. Many sleep apnea patients remain non-diagnosed due to lacking access to medical tests. In recent years, portable and wearable sensors that measure blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) are becoming common and affordable for daily use, and they open the door for affordable and accessible sleep apnea screening in the context of everyday life. To learn about the advancement in SpO2-based sleep apnea screening, we conducted a survey of published studies. We searched databases including Springer, Science Direct, Web of Science, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore using the keywords “sleep apnea” AND (“SpO2” OR “blood oxygen saturation”) AND (“machine learning” OR “deep learning”). After screening 835 results, we included 31 publications for a full-text review. Analysis shows that SpO2-based sleep apnea screening studies consist of three main categories: (1) individual apnea events detection, (2) apnea-hypopnea index prediction, and (3) apnea severity classification. We found two significant research gaps: a lack of sufficient and diverse publicly available datasets, and the absence of standardized protocols for data collection, signal preprocessing, and model bench marking. Future research should focus on addressing these gaps to enhance the effectiveness and reliability of AI-driven sleep apnea screening methods using SpO2 signals.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1510166/fullsleep apneaSpO2oximetermobile health (mHealth)digital healthmachine learning
spellingShingle Nhung H. Hoang
Zilu Liang
AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions
Frontiers in Digital Health
sleep apnea
SpO2
oximeter
mobile health (mHealth)
digital health
machine learning
title AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions
title_full AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions
title_fullStr AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions
title_full_unstemmed AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions
title_short AI-driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation: current practices and future directions
title_sort ai driven sleep apnea screening with overnight blood oxygen saturation current practices and future directions
topic sleep apnea
SpO2
oximeter
mobile health (mHealth)
digital health
machine learning
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1510166/full
work_keys_str_mv AT nhunghhoang aidrivensleepapneascreeningwithovernightbloodoxygensaturationcurrentpracticesandfuturedirections
AT ziluliang aidrivensleepapneascreeningwithovernightbloodoxygensaturationcurrentpracticesandfuturedirections