K. Nysom et al., PUBLISHED MODELS AND LOCAL DATA CAN BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN REFERENCE VALUES OF LUNG-FUNCTION FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS, The European respiratory journal, 10(7), 1997, pp. 1591-1598
The aim of this study was to create reference equations for pulmonary
function tests (PFTs) that span the age range from childhood to young
adulthood. PFT results (forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory
volume in one second (FEV1), ratio of FEV1 to FVC (FEV1/FVC), total l
ung capacity (TLC), transfer factor) of 348 healthy 13-24 yr old Cauca
sian never-smokers from a local population study were compared with 13
selected sets of published reference equations, Predicted and observe
d PFT results differed significantly for 63 of 92 reference equations
tested, and most equations accounted poorly for the increase in PFT va
riables which takes place during adolescence. We selected the equation
s with the best fit and adjusted their parameters, so that the level a
nd variance of predicted values agreed with the local data. For subjec
ts older than 18 yrs, we selected the European Community for Steel and
Coal (ECSC) equations, For subjects younger than 18 yrs, we chose Eur
opean summary equations for FVC, FEV1, and FEV1/FVC, and recent Britis
h equations for TLC and transfer factor, The customized reference equa
tions are the best available (maximum likelihood) for analysing PFTs o
f patients tested in our laboratory, Our approach can be used whenever
generally accepted reference equations are lacking and a local sample
of normal subjects is available.