Differences in the Measurement of Functional Residual Capacity Between Body Plethysmographs of Two Manufacturers

Peter Alter; Jan Orszag; Emiel F M Wouters; Claus F Vogelmeier; Rudolf A Jörres

doi:10.2147/COPD.S363493

Differences in the Measurement of Functional Residual Capacity Between Body Plethysmographs of Two Manufacturers

Int J Chron Obstruct Pulmon Dis. 2022 Jun 24:17:1477-1482. doi: 10.2147/COPD.S363493. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Peter Alter¹, Jan Orszag^{2

3}, Emiel F M Wouters^{4

5}, Claus F Vogelmeier¹, Rudolf A Jörres²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Philipps-University of Marburg (UMR), Germany, Member of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Marburg, Germany.
² Institute and Outpatient Clinic for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Comprehensive Pneumology Center Munich (CPC-M), Member of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Munich, Germany.
³ Department of Anaesthesiology, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
⁴ Department of Respiratory Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, Netherlands.
⁵ Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Lung Health, Vienna, Austria.

Abstract

Body plethysmography is a fundamental method for the assessment of static lung volumes. Although equipment is provided by several manufacturers, there are no established cross-vendor tools for quality control. In the process of quality control and analysis of data on hyperinflation from the large COPD cohort COSYCONET, hints appeared that plethysmographs of different vendors might yield different values for static lung volumes. Functional residual capacity (FRC) differed about 0.67 litres between plethysmographs of the manufacturer Vyaire and Ganshorn. Absolute differences of residual lung volume (RV) and total lung capacity (TLC) were similar. It appears undeniable that differences of this magnitude have an impact on clinical interpretation. Thus, device harmonization seems to be required.

Keywords: body plethysmography; functional residual capacity; lung function; static lung volumes.

MeSH terms

Functional Residual Capacity
Humans
Lung Volume Measurements
Lung*
Plethysmography, Whole Body
Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive* / diagnosis
Residual Volume
Total Lung Capacity

Grants and funding

COSYCONET is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Competence Network Asthma and COPD (ASCONET) and performed in collaboration with the German Center for Lung Research (DZL). The project is funded by the BMBF with grant number 01 GI 0881, and is supported by unrestricted grants from AstraZeneca GmbH, Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Chiesi GmbH, GlaxoSmithKline, Grifols Deutschland GmbH, MSD Sharp & Dohme GmbH, Mundipharma GmbH, Novartis Deutschland GmbH, Pfizer Pharma GmbH, Takeda Pharma Vertrieb GmbH & Co. KG, Teva GmbH for patient investigations and laboratory measurements. J.V. is supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. The funding body had no involvement in the design of the study, or the collection, analysis or interpretation of the data.