Chest
Clinical InvestigationsThe Relationship Between Pulmonary Function and Dyspnea in Obstructive Lung Disease
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
This study involved sequential outpatients who were referred to the Sir Mortimer B. Davis—Jewish General Hospital for routine pulmonary function testing between March 1 and Oct 1, 1987. Those who were unable to perform spirometry according to the protocol, or who had taken inhaled β-agonist within 1 h of arrival in the laboratory were excluded. One hundred seventy-four patients represented the initial study population screened. They included those with known asthma, COPD, or restrictive lung
Results
Ninety-three (41 male and 52 female) of 174 initially screened subjects conformed to the aforementioned definition of OLD and are included in the subsequent analysis. The mean age of these patients was 68±11 years. The results of spirometry are seen in Table 1.
The correlation between pulmonary function values and dyspnea using either FEV1, FVC, or FEF25-75 was similar. Accordingly, only the former is presented below, although the results were consistent for all three parameters. There was no
Discussion
We found a poor correlation between FEV1, FVC, and FEF25–75 measured by routine spirometry and dyspnea assessed by a Borg scale in patients with OLD. Although dyspnea scores improved after albuterol, the changes in dyspnea did not correlate well with improvement in the above measures of pulmonary function. A very large objective response to albuterol was consistently associated with improvement in dyspnea. However, those with large subjective responses often had insignificant changes in FEV1
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank the following pulmonary function technicians—Pierre Kupfer, Carole Egglefield, and Johanne Castonguay—for their diligent work, and Angela Palumbo and Donna Cohen for assistance in preparation of the manuscript.
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Supported in part by the Fred C. Ullman Family Fund for Pulmonary Studies.
Presented at the 54th Annual Scientific Assembly, American College of Chest Physicians, Anaheim, Oct 3–7, 1988.