Evaluation of Voice Analysis of Snoring Patients Under Physical Examination and Laboratory Findings In Terms of Presence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome

OSAS is a serious health problem with high morbidity and mortality. It is known that PSG is the gold standard diagnostic test for diagnosis of OSAS. However it is a time consuming and costly procedure, which requires specialized staff and special equipment. Furthermore, PSG is unable to detect level of obstruction/collapse, unlike physical examination and cephalometric analysis. The purpose of this study is to determine whether OSAS patients? history, physical examination, cephalometric findings and voice analysis of both vowels and snore sound could be used to predict severity of OSAS and localize the pathology in the upper airway.All the patients were evaluated with physical examination, PSG, cephalometric graphies and voice analysis. Totally 73 variables from the data above were included in the study. For statistical analysis, the subjects were divided into two subgroups according to AHI (<15, ?15), and the data was compared between groups. Further, correlation analysis was also run between the couples of the variables. It was found that soft palate score, GÜUHDA, least oxygen saturation and SPI values revealed significant difference between the subgroups. Soft palate and GÜUHDA scores and least oxygen saturations were found to be correlated with AHI. However, logistic regression analysis presented that only high GÜUHDA and soft palate scores increase the probability of medium-to-severe OSAS subgroup (AHI?15). Statistically no correlation was found between formant analysis of snoring sound and other findings. However, a series of correlations of formant frequencies of vowel sounds with some upper airway and cephalometric data as well as AHI has been confirmed. They were particularly related with measurements of oropharyngeal soft tissues and pharyngeal dimensions.As a conclusion, it could be suggested that formant frequency analysis of vowel sounds together with physical examination and cephalometric data could give insight on severity of the OSAS and the location of the pathology in the upper airway but this should be supported with further studies.Key words: Obstructive sleep apnea, voice analysis, cephalometric analysis.