Is home spirometry useful in diagnosing asthma in children with nonspecific respiratory symptoms?

Background: Variation of lung function is considered to be a hallmark of asthma. Although guidelines recommend measuring it as a diagnostic tool for asthma, the usefulness of this approach has not been studied in children.

Aim: To assess the usefulness of home spirometry in children with nonspecific lower respiratory tract symptoms, to diagnose or exclude asthma.

Comparison between peak expiratory flow and FEV(1) measurements on a home spirometer and on a pneumotachograph in children with asthma.

Background: The accuracy of electronic portable home spirometers has been demonstrated in vitro using computer-based waveforms. We assessed the agreement in vivo between measurements of lung function on an electronic spirometer (Koko Peak Pro) and those obtained by the gold standard, a hospital lung function laboratory pneumotachograph.

Methods: Fifty stable asthmatic children (33 boys), aged 6-17 years, performed peak expiratory flow (PEF) and forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV(1)) measurements according to international guidelines on a portable home spirometer and on the hospital pneumotachograph in random order.

Variation of peak inspiratory flow through dry powder inhalers in children with stable and unstable asthma.

Drug release from dry powder inhalers depends for a large part on a sufficiently high peak inspiratory flow (PIF). We determined the variation of PIF through two commonly prescribed dry powder inhalers in children with asthma. We analyzed the effect of inhaler device, age, and severity of asthma symptoms on variation of PIF.

Bronchodilator response in asthmatic children is significantly reduced when measured immediately after methacholine challenge.

Aim: Airway responses to a bronchodilator (BDR) and to methacholine are frequently measured in the assessment of childhood asthma and in pulmonary research. For practical reasons, we wondered whether it would be possible to obtain a reliable BDR immediately after completion of a methacholine challenge test. To this end, we compared BDR with and without a preceding methacholine challenge.