New Matrx Plus™ Device Can Identify Patients With Osa Who Can Benefit From Oral Appliance Therapy

We at Premiere Sleep Associates are proud to share that our colleagues at Zephyr Sleep Technologies Inc. have been approved by the FDA to sell their new medical device in the United States. The MATRx Plus™ is “the first ever ‘at-home’ class II medical device to identify obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients suitable for oral appliance therapy.” (Link to press release.) Zephyr has partnered with Dentsply Sirona, the world’s largest manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, to bring MATRx plus™ to the United States market.

What does this mean for you, someone who might have mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnea?

The availability of the new MATRx Plus™ means that via your sleep center, sleep physician’s office or sleep medicine dentistry office, you’ll have access to an easy, intuitive at-home device you can use to administer an apnea sleep test from the comfort of your own home.

The MATRx Plus™ has been developed specifically to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of people with milder forms of undiagnosed OSA–cases that can be treated by wearing an oral appliance to keep the airway open during sleep, rather than using a CPAP or other form of PAP machine.

If you haven’t had a sleep apnea diagnosis yet but you have symptoms of apnea, such as snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness, you may have undiagnosed OSA. An estimated one in four adults in the U.S. have apnea, and over 85% of these cases are thought to be undiagnosed.

If your physician and dentist think you may have mild to moderate OSA, ask about the possibility of using MATRx Plus™ to conduct a sleep test to confirm a diagnosis.

Why Use MATRx Plus™? (Features)

The MATRx Plus™ and its predecessor, the MATRx™, allow patients to self-test for apnea at home without having to travel to a sleep center to undergo an overnight sleep study. The device has additional features that make it ideal for patients to use at home:

• Multi-function capabilities. With this new device, you can perform both a home sleep test (HST) and an oral appliance trial. This means that using the same medical device, you can both determine if you have sleep apnea and test your response to an oral appliance. The results of the latter test enable your dentist and sleep physician to make prompt adjustments to your therapy.

• Tablet design. The interface for the test is simple to navigate using the tablet provided to you. The MATRx Plus™ device comes equipped with instructional videos that will walk you through the steps required to administer your sleep test and trial at home.

• Cloud connectivity. The MATRx Plus™ device is connected to the cloud and will automatically deliver your home sleep study to the sleep professionals involved in designing and coordinating your treatment: your sleep medicine dentist, your board certified sleep physician, and Zephyr’s servers. This instant report delivery facilitates care and enhances customer service, as well.

The Advantage of Offering MATRx Plus™ to Patients

For sleep medicine dentists and physicians, the MATRx Plus™ reduces some of the uncertainty when determining whether or not a patient will respond well to oral appliance therapy for sleep apnea.

Using proprietary algorithms and machine learning, this new device informs medical professionals of two things for each patient:

• First, the testing device determines if the patient can be treated for apnea using oral appliance therapy (also known as a sleep apnea mouthpiece or splint);

• Then, the MATRx Plus™ advises how to treat the patient by offering a therapeutic treatment position. This input from the test makes it easier for sleep medicine dentists to order and customize the best possible oral appliance for the patient’s apnea treatment needs.

Improving diagnosis and treatment in this manner is better for the patient and improves efficiency of care.

Where Is the MATRx Plus™ Available?

The MATRx plus™ will be available for purchase by sleep medicine dentistry practices like ours, and also by sleep labs and sleep clinics. (The previous version of this device, the FDA-approved MATRx™, is currently being used in more than 200 sleep labs and clinics in the United States.)

Premiere Sleep Associates and the MATRx™ and MATRx Plus™

We at Premiere Sleep Associates are proud to share that we have been a part of the clinical study for this new and exciting diagnostic product since October 2016. Our practice was the first dental office to have use of these units while going through the FDA, at a time when only a handful of sleep medicine dentists across the nation had access to them.

MATRx Plus™ is just now available to other dentists–but we’ve been using the MATRx™ to help apnea patients for two years. To date, we have completed over 70 studies using the MATRx Plus™.

If you have any questions about this new technology, we encourage you to call our office to learn more.