The AASM has appointed a task force to produce standards for positive airway pressure techniques, according to a letter from Michael H. Silber, MbChB, president of the AASM.

The task force has been assigned the responsibility of producing a document standardizing such techniques.

In other news related in the letter, Silber announced the recipient of the portable monitoring request for proposal. The American Sleep Medicine Foundation has awarded the grant to Carol Rosen, MD, principal investigator, and Susan Redline, MD, coinvestigator, of University Hospitals of Cleveland Sleep Center and Case Sleep Research Center, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. The investigators will conduct a multicenter, controlled study on portable monitoring for the diagnosis of OSA.

A recently published portable monitoring study appearing in the February 2007 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine found that in patients with a high likelihood of OSA, exclusively ambulatory techniques and equipment were as successful at identifying and treating sleep apnea as the current method of laboratory PSG testing. Responding to the results of that study, Silber said in a previous interview with Sleep Review, “I found the results to be very interesting. The numbers are small. It will need further confirmation.”

The study by Rosen and Redline will be more comprehensive. Silber said, “Our study is somewhat more sophisticated and a larger design, and it will be very helpful to see if the results are similar or different from the results of this [Annals of Internal Medicine] study.”

Current support for supervised PSG for diagnosis and titration is based on the assertion that establishing optimal CPAP increases treatment compliance. CMS is currently reviewing its coverage policy that OSA patients who need CPAP can be identified using only a facility-based, sleep laboratory PSG study. The results of the new portable monitoring study could impact the outcome of CMS’ coverage policy decision.