Study:AI-Powered Measure of Respiratory Effort is a Better OSA Detector Than Traditional Metrics

Sunrise Group is sharing results from a new peer-reviewed study that provides further clinical validation for its home sleep test (featuring a respiratory effort measurement) against esophageal pressure.

Published in Nature Communications Medicine, the study shows that REMOV, the Sunrise-specific marker of respiratory effort burden in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), outperforms traditional polysomnography (PSG) metrics in predicting patient-reported symptoms.

OSA is typically diagnosed and severity-graded using the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), which counts breathing events per hour of sleep. However, symptom burden (fatigue, daytime sleepiness, depression) correlates sometimes only weakly with AHI, creating a gap between measured event frequency and patient experience. This disconnect can complicate clinical decision-making and may contribute to underdiagnosis, despite OSA affecting about 936 million adults worldwide.

The newly published study examined 1,000 adults referred for suspected OSA who underwent overnight PSG complemented by a Sunrise recording to measure REMOV, which captures the percentage of sleep time spent with increased respiratory effort, and symptom assessment using validated questionnaires. The study found that:

• Patient-reported symptoms are more strongly linked with REMOV than with other PSG metrics (including AHI), particularly among women.
• REMOV captures clinically relevant burdens in low-AHI patients, where symptom-AHI mismatch is frequent.
• REMOV values increase as AHI values increase, rising almost linearly at low AHI values (0-15 events/hour), then flattening at higher AHI values (>30 events/h).

“Fatigue and sleepiness matter most to patients, yet symptom severity isn’t always reflected by high AHI values,” Sunrise Group Co-Founder/CEO Laurent Martinot said. “REMOV offers an accurate view of respiratory effort, helping clinicians understand what’s driving symptoms and identify patients who may be overlooked by AHI-centric assessment. By capturing what AHI can miss, we also realize the true burden of OSA is likely bigger than we thought, and we can help more people get the care they need.”

This new study further validates Sunrise Group’s approach to diagnosing sleep apnea, especially in patients with mild OSA, and in women. By shifting the focus from merely counting breathing events to the larger picture of patient burden, Sunrise is positioned to help clinicians understand the disease impacts better than they can using traditional methods.

Founded in 2015, Sunrise Group develops medical devices and sleep care solutions. The company first developed a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-cleared and CE-marked medical device—a lightweight, chin-worn sensor for at-home sleep apnea diagnosis using AI-supported analysis of mandibular jaw movements—that has been validated in peer-reviewed studies and endorsed by various sleep experts. Sunrise is now developing advanced software and hardware to detect, monitor, and treat sleep disorders, and brings this expertise to Dreem Health, the U.S.-based virtual sleep clinic, available in all 50 states and covered by major insurers. Headquartered in Belgium with offices in France and the United States, the team brings together leaders in sleep research, patient care, and medical technology.