Eye was fooled
A couple of days ago I was reviewing (triaging, actually) the spirometry portion of a full panel of PFTs performed with pretty terrible test quality and was trying to decide if the technician respo…
Month July 2017
PFTs on YouTube
A friend recently sent me the links to several YouTube videos on pulmonary function testing. I’ve spent some time off and on over the last year looking at YouTube videos and in particular I’ve been…
Z Score to remember is -1.645
The use of Z scores to report PFT results, both clinically and for research is occurring more and more frequently. Both the Z score and the Lower Limit of Normal (LLN) come from the same roots and …
Contraindications
A couple weeks ago I was asked whether it was safe for a patient with an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) to have pulmonary function testing. My first thought was that it was probably unsafe but aft…
Assessing post-BD improvement in FEV1 and FVC as a percent of the predicted
The 2005 ATS/ERS standards for assessing post-bronchodilator changes in FVC and FEV1 have been criticized numerous times. A recent article in the May issue of Chest (Quanjer et al) has taken it to …