Oscillation spirometry and variability of airway resistance

本提案的目标是开发一种适合儿童和成人评估肺功能的新型设备。为了测量一个人的肺功能，医生会要求病人深吸气，然后通过管子尽可能用力和快速地呼气。人通过气管的空气量决定了气道的健康程度。不幸的是，这种测量需要大量的努力和训练，因此通常首次诊断哮喘的6岁以下儿童无法可靠地进行测量。目前还没有推荐对儿童肺功能进行客观测量。我们正在开发一种被称为振荡肺活量计的新设备，它可能有助于填补这一空白。它使少量的空气从病人的口腔和呼吸道进出。让空气进出所需的压力越大，该设备确定的气道必须越窄。通过跟踪这一变化大约3分钟，我们得到了另一种测量气道直径变化的方法。这个测量很有趣，因为我们发现哮喘患者的气道直径变化比没有哮喘的人要大得多。我们还发现，当哮喘病患者服用消声器时，它不仅能扩张狭窄的气道，还能减少气道的变化——换句话说，它能使气道平静下来。我们正在开发的新设备将执行标准肺活量测定法，还将测量向患者肺部吸气的困难程度，最后还将测量随时间的变化情况。除了制造一种新设备，我们还在探索这种新的测量方法对哮喘患者气道变化的敏感性，以及这种测量方法与哮喘严重程度的关系。

The goal of this proposal is to develop a novel device for assessing lung function suitable for both children and adults. In order to measure a person's lung function, a physician will ask a patient to inhale deeply and exhale as hard and as fast as possible through a tube. The amount of air the person gets through the tube determines how healthy the airways are. Unfortunately this measurement requires significant effort and training and thus children under the age of 6 where asthma is usually first diagnosed cannot reliably do the measure. Currently there is no recommended objective measurement for lung function in children.      We are developing a new device known as an oscillation spirometer that may help fill that gap. It moves small amounts of air that puff into and out of a patient's mouth and airways. The more pressure required to get that air in and out, the more narrow the device determines the airway must be. By tracking how this changes for about 3 minutes, we get another measure of how much airway diameters are changing.      This measure is interesting, because we have found that the airway diameters in asthmatics are changing much more than in people without asthma. Also we have found that when an asthmatic takes a puffer, it not only dilates narrowed airways, but it also reduces their variation¬ - or in other words, it calms them down. The new device we are developing will perform standard spirometry and will also measure how difficult it is to puff air into a patient's lungs, and it will finally also measure how that changes over time. As well as building a new device, we are exploring how sensitive this new measurement is to changes in an asthmatic's airways, and how this measurement relates to the severity of asthma.