title: Forced expiratory maneuvers in children aged 3 to 5 years.
abstract: There is no consensus about reproducibility and reliability of spirometry in young children. We evaluated forced expiratory maneuvers from 98 children aged 3 to 5 years with a variety of respiratory disorders before and after bronchodilator treatment. Forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1) were analyzed for reproducibility by the American Thoracic Society criteria and for reliability based on the coefficient of variation (CV%). Over 90% of the patients cooperated, however, while 95% could exhale for at least 1 second, very few generated an FEV1 on all 6 "best" efforts. This clearly improved with age. Of all patients nearly 60% performed reproducible pre- and postbronchodilator sets of FVC but only 32% performed reproducible sets of FEV1. Based on the CV%, those patients who could reproducibly perform an FVC and FEV1 did it quite reliably (mean CV%, 9.38 and 7.01 for FVC and FEV1, respectively). We conclude that while some very young children can perform spirometry, reliability of performance cannot be assumed in this age group.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, New York Medical College, Valhalla.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kanengiser
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Dozor
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001993:Bronchodilator Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005541:Forced Expiratory Volume / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010349:Patient Compliance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013147:Spirometry; D014797:Vital Capacity / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D001993:Bronchodilator Agents