NIEUWS

Office Spirometry In Detection And Diagnosis Of Obstructive Airmay Disease In Primary Care

Dr. Johan Buffels, Doctoral Thesis in Medical Sciences – Leuven 2009 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Group Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Public Health, Academic Centre of General Practice Chapter 1

The accuracy of office spirometry performed by trained primary care physicians using the Spirobank handheld spirometer

Research questions

1. What is the accuracy of spirometry performed with the MIR Spirobank? How do the measurements obtained with this spirometer rate to those from pneumotachograph (Jaeger MasterScope) in a pulmonary function laboratory

2. How accurately can trained primary-care physicians perform spirometrie by means of a portable electronic spirometer and how do the measurements obtained by four different primary-care physicians using their own devices relate to each other

Conclusion

The Spirobank spirometer performed very well compared with the Jaeger MasterScope in a laboratory environment, and trained primary-care physicians managed to generate accurate measurements with this equipment. The study also showed that in practice other sources of errors such as timing of the test will be much more important than the small measurement errors by the devise itself. Within a research design, patients are rarely or never examined at the same moment of the day. Thus, the Spirobank device seems to be appropriate for research purposes if the standardized protocol is used correctly and the acceptability criteria are respected.