title: Simultaneous visual inspection for barometric whole-body plethysmography waveforms during pulmonary function testing in client-owned cats.
abstract: For the purpose of applying a barometric whole-body plethysmography (BWBP) device as a routine clinical tool in client-owned cats, the objective of this study was to evaluate the methodological importance of simultaneous visual inspection (SVI) of graphic tracing.
  
  
  
  To investigate the effect of SVI on the results obtained, 50 client-owned cats were included. Breath-by-breath analysis was conducted with BWBP software, and a commonly used rejection setting was chosen for automatic elimination (AE) of non-breath artefactual waveforms, according to tidal volume (TV), inspiratory and expiratory time, and the difference between inspiratory and expiratory volumes. During 10 mins of data recording, SVI for BWBP waveforms was performed to record manually time periods that were free of any artefacts. The two datasets derived from AE alone (AEA method) and AE plus SVI (SVI-AE method) were compared. The inter-observer effect on the process of SVI was evaluated on six cats.
  
  
  
  There were statistically significant differences (P <0.001) between the AEA and SVI-AE datasets for most BWBP parameters. Bland-Altman analysis of the parameter-enhanced pause (Penh) showed heterogeneous variances, indicating less agreement when the Penh values were large. Intra-individual coefficients of variation of Penh were significantly higher with the AEA method than with the SVI-AE method (61.1% vs 34.7%, respectively; P <0.001). Inter-observer agreement on the SVI process was excellent, and no statistically significant differences between the two observers were found for any BWBP parameters obtained by the SVI-AE method (P >0.05).
  
  
  
  Visual inspection for BWBP waveforms in real time can reliably identify stable breathing signals in client-owned cats. The obtained results were significantly different when the SVI method was used in addition to AE. In the interpretation of BWBP parameters or comparison of measurements among studies, whether an SVI methodology was applied should be considered.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Section of Small Animal Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Veterinary Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chung-Hui
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Section of Respiratory Therapy, Department of Integrated Diagnostics and Therapeutics, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Huey-Dong
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Section of Small Animal Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Veterinary Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Pei-Ying
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Lo
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Section of Small Animal Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Veterinary Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Jih-Jong
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Graduate Institute of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Molecular and Comparative Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan Section of Diagnostic Pathology, National Taiwan University Veterinary Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan chhsuliu@ntu.edu.tw.
authors.forename: Chen-Hsuan
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002371:Cat Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D002415:Cats; D005260:Female; D008173:Lung Diseases, Obstructive / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000662:veterinary*; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010993:Plethysmography, Whole Body / Q000662:veterinary*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests / Q000662:veterinary*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013990:Tidal Volume