Physics Commons^™

Effect Of Reduction Of Breath-Holding Time In The Single-Breath Method To Assess Carbon Monoxide Diffusing Capacity, Elsa Magro

Masters

Measurement of the diffusing capacity of the lung is part of the routine pulmonary function assessment in every patient and the single breath method is the most commonly used method. This method requires a subject to inspire a gas mixture followed by a 10 second (s) breath-hold. However dyspnoea may preclude measurement in patients with advanced pulmonary disease. We sought to determine if breath-hold time reduction had a significant effect on measured DLco values.
Forced spirometry and CO-diffusion by the single breath method were
performed by a respiratory scientist with a Jaeger master-screen PFT equipment, in duplicate with breath-holding of …