Manual scoring of periodic limb movements in children: is it still necessary?

Although manual scoring has been classically considered the gold standard to identify periodic leg movements (PLM), it is a very time consuming and expensive process, also subject to variability in interpretation. In the last decades, different authors have observed reasonably good agreement between automated PSG scoring algorithms and manual scoring in adults, according to established criteria. We aim to compare the automatic software analysis of our polysomnogram with the manual staging in children with sleep-disordered breathing. We performed a semiautomatic method, in which an experienced technician watched the video recording and removed from the automatic analysis those movements that did not correspond to true candidate leg movement (LM). A total of 131 PSGs were studied; applying the established criteria, 65 children were diagnosed of obstructive sleep apnea, and 66 presented snoring but with no sleep apnea. The mean age was 6.7 years (±1.7) and twenty-five children (19.08 %) had a PLMI >5/h. Statistical differences were found not only for PLMI (manual: 2.20 (0.7, 4.1) vs automatic (6.4 (3.85,9.5); p