PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Magro, Elsa
AU  - Kenedy, Barry
AU  - Crinion, Sophie
AU  - Cotter, Orla
AU  - Curran, David
AU  - O'Connor, Terry
TI  - The effect of reducing breath holding time to assess diffusion capacity
DP  - 2012 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - P3220
VI  - 40
IP  - Suppl 56
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P3220.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P3220.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40
AB  - The single breath method to measure diffusion capacity requires a subject to inspire a gas mixture followed by a 10 ± 2 second 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 in duplicate with breath-holding for 10 ± 2 seconds, 8 ± 2 seconds and 6 ± 2 seconds in 30 controls (FEV1 107 ± 12.04% predicted), 30 severe COPD patients (FEV1 37.2 ± 7.92% predicted), and 30 patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) (FEV1 69.5 ± 17.61% predicted).There was no significant difference between DLCO(SB) and DLCO(VA) measured at 10, 8 and 6 seconds in the control (p=0.4431) and ILD groups (p=0.5915). However, there was a significant difference between DLCO(SB) (p=0.0003) and DLCO(VA) (p=0.0183) measured at 10, 8 and 6 seconds in the COPD group.In the presence of severe airway obstruction the DLCO decreases with breath hold time reduction. However, in healthy controls and patients with ILD, there was no significant change in the DLCO when breath hold time is reduced from 10 to 6 seconds. This could allow for a reduction in breath hold time when measuring the DLCO in patients with advanced ILD who are unable to breath hold for 10 seconds.