Chest
CLINICAL INVESTIGATIONSOccult Pulmonary Abnormalities in Asymptomatic Asthmatic Children
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
Tests of pulmonary function were performed in 178 asthmatic children when they came for regular outpatient visits. Sixty-two were girls, and 116 were boys, and their ages ranged from 5 to 17 years, with a modal age of eight years (Fig 1).
All of the children were free from dyspnea and expiratory wheezing when tested and had been so for at least one month. All of the patients fell into either type C (76 percent) or type D (24 percent) of the classification of Hill and associates,8 and several
Results
An overall pattern of residual abnormalities of pulmonary function was observed repeatedly, hypoxemia with increased residual volume (RV) and TLC and with a normally sized VC. Mean values for tests are given in Table 1.
Discussion
The results of this study clearly slow the limitations of the routine spirogram in detecting residual abnormalities of pulmonary function in the asymptomatic asthmatic child. The FEF25-75% has been previously noted to be a highly sensitive indicator of compromised expiratory flow in asthmatic children;3, 7 that these children all had normal values for FEF25-75% implies that they were truly in remission when studied.
The incidence of abnormalities in static lung volume was higher than one may
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Presented in part at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society, New York City, May, 1974.
Supported in part by a grant from the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Association.
Manuscript received June 7; revision accepted July 30.
Reprint requests: Dr. Levison, Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada