Chest
Performance Evaluation of Contemporary Spirometers
Section snippets
METHODS
All testing was performed with ambient air at about 21°C, relative humidity 30 percent and 647 mm Hg barometric pressure. Using ambient air allowed testing the spirometers under best-case conditions, and eliminated potential uncertainties related to the actual temperature and humidity of gases delivered to the flow or volume sensors. The spirometers used a variety of patient connections with varying dead-space volumes. The variable volumes and connections would have introduced unpredictable
RESULTS
Sixty two spirometers were obtained from 37 sources comprising spirometers from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, and Japan. At least one spirometer from each of the major United States vendors was tested. Thirty-three (53 percent) of the spirometers were volume-based, and 29 (47 percent) were flow-based. Fifty-nine (95 percent) were computerized.
Table 1 alphabetically lists the 62 spirometers tested and the source. The type of spirometer, software version, type of computer,
DISCUSSION
The performance criteria used were based on the ATS recommendations3 and earlier testing and standardization criteria.4, 5, 7 The major changes from the earlier methods were additional waveforms, more sophisticated end of test criteria, and a relaxation of the limits of acceptability, which were all based on studies published since the 1979 ATS recommendations.5, 7
An important addition to the earlier ATS recommendations was the allowance of a 5 percent random error rate. The authors felt that
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank the spirometer manufacturers, vendors and users who participated in our testing. Also we thank Steven L. Berlin for technical assistance in doing some of the more recent testing. Device 28 was provided to us by the Harvard School of Public Health and is being used for the “Acid Aerosol Health Effects in North American Children Study.” We thank them for making the equipment available.
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Evaluation results and listing of brand names does not constitute endorsement or approval by the University of Utah, the authors, or the American College of Chest Physicians.
Manuscript received May 8; revision accepted June 22.