Change in forced expiratory time and spirometric performance during a single pulmonary function testing session.

Background: Among patients with obstructive lung disease, the correlation between clinical improvement and bronchodilator response is poor. Forced expiratory time (FET) may explain some discrepancy, but FET has received little attention.

Methods: We analyzed change in FET during the 3 initial satisfactory flow-volume loops in 102 consecutive patients, 37 with normal spirometry and 65 with airflow obstruction referred to a Veterans Administration pulmonary function testing (PFT) laboratory over 5 months.

Evaluation of a new method for measurement of minute ventilation recovery time.

Purpose: To determine if the measurement of minute ventilation recovery time (V (E)RT), a recently proposed predictor of extubation outcome, can be reproduced using a more practical, simpler method.

Methods: A case series with convenience sampling was performed in the surgical intensive care unit of a tertiary-care hospital. Nineteen patients were enrolled during weaning from mechanical ventilation, prior to the initial extubation attempt.

Race and electronically measured adherence to immunosuppressive medications after deceased donor renal transplantation.

Nonadherence to immunosuppressive medications may partly explain the worse allograft outcomes among black recipients of renal transplants. In a prospective cohort study of recipients of deceased donor renal transplants, microelectronic cap monitors were placed on bottles of one immunosuppressive medication to (1) measure average daily percentage adherence during the first posttransplantation year and (2) determine the factors associated with adherence. A total of 278 transplant recipients who provided sufficient microelectronic adherence data were grouped into four categories of average daily percentage adherence: 95 to 100% adherence (41.