PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Barbara Vogt
AU  - Gunnar Elke
AU  - Philipp von Bismarck
AU  - Tobias Ankermann
AU  - Norbert Weiler
AU  - Inéz Frerichs
TI  - Regional pulmonary function testing by electrical impedance tomography in healthy children and children with asthma
DP  - 2012 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - 3296
VI  - 40
IP  - Suppl 56
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/3296.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/3296.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40
AB  - Introduction: Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is able to assess regional dynamic lung volume changes and to determine spatial distribution of lung function in the chest cross-section. The aim of our study was to examine the regional lung function in healthy children and children with asthma before and after exercise.Patients and methods: 10 healthy children (11±3 yr, mean age±SD) and 10 children with asthma (12±3 yr) were examined by EIT during conventional pulmonary function testing at baseline and after stairs running for 5 min. EIT data were acquired at 33 scans/s (Goe-MF II CareFusion, Höchberg, Germany). Regional forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expired volume in 0.5 s (FEV0.5) and tidal volume (VT) were determined in 912 EIT image pixels before and 3 min after exercise. Spatial heterogeneity of ventilation was characterized by the coefficient of variation (CV) calculated from all pixel values of FVC, FEV0.5 and VT. Statistical analysis was carried out by paired and unpaired t-test for comparisons within and between the groups.Results: Significant exercise-dependent differences in CVFVC were found in both groups whereas CVFEV0.5 and CVVT were not affected by exercise. CVFVC was significantly different between the healthy children and children with asthma after but not before exercise. CVFEV0.5 and CVVT were not significantly different between the groups both at baseline and after exercise.Conclusion: EIT detected regional lung function differences between healthy children and children with asthma during forced full expiration. Future analysis should aim at characterization of peripheral airways by novel EIT-derived measures of regional lung function.