Network Medicine

What ?

We study patients with sleep apnea. In short, it is a very common respiratory disorder in which patients suffer from short to moderate pauses of breathing while asleep. It has recently reached the status of pandemic as it affects 1 in 4 men (in the Western world) and 1 in 10 women. Widely unknown by the general population, it is the main cause that leads to many cardiac problems, hypertension, diabetes, cancer and even death in extreme cases, if untreated.

Why ?

We are on the brink of proposing a new way to view and treat patients with sleep apnea based on simple rules. These rules are the result of a set of specific patterns found in the risk factors of patients. Our research may lay the basis for future automatic prediction, whether a patient is prone to developing this disease or not.

How ?

Using social network analysis and statistics to study the society of sleep apnea patients.

Publications specific to this project

A Network Based Approach to Sleep Apnea Syndrome. Ștefan Mihăicuță, Răzvan Avram, Alexandru Topîrceanu, Mihai Udrescu, European Respiratory Symposium 2013. [Cite] [ERS Journal]
AER Score: A Social-Network-Inspired Predictor for Sleep Apnea Syndrome. Ștefan Mihăicuță, Alexandru Topîrceanu, Răzvan Avram, Mihai Udrescu, American College of Chest Physicians, CHEST 2014. [Cite] [CHEST Journal]
The Role of the Epworth Sleepiness Score in Identifying Patients Susceptible to Acquiring Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome. Ștefan Mihăicuță, Alexandru Topîrceanu, Răzvan Avram, Mihai Udrescu. American Thoracic Society’s International Conference (ATS) 2014.
A network motif based approach for classifying online social networks. Alexandra Duma, Alexandru Topirceanu (2014, May). In Applied Computational Intelligence and Informatics (SACI), 2014 IEEE 9th International Symposium on (pp. 311-315). [Cite] [IEEE]
Epworth Sleepiness Score Contribution At A Network-Based Approach To Sleep Apnea Syndrome. Razvan Avram, Alexandru Topirceanu, Florin Mihaltan, Mihai Udrescu, Stefan Mihaicuta (2014). In Am J Respir Crit Care Med, 189, A3596. [Cite] [ATS Journal]
Data Analysis for Patients with Sleep Apnea Syndrome: A Complex Network Approach. Alexandru Topîrceanu, Mihai Udrescu, Răzvan Avram, Stefan Mihăicuță. The 6th International Workshop On Soft Computing Applications (SOFA 2014) [IEEE, ISI]
AER score: An efficient predictor for sleep apnea syndrome. Mihai Udrescu, Alexandru Topirceanu, Ana Muresan, Stefan Mihaicuta. In European Respiratory Journal, 2014; 44:Suppl. 58, nr 2237, ISI impact factor 7.125.
Network-based assessment of sleep apnea syndrome treatment response. Alexandru Topirceanu, Mihai Udrescu, Ana Muresan, Stefan Mihaicuta. In European Respiratory Journal, 2014; 44:Suppl. 58, nr 2215, ISI impact factor 7.125.