The Spirometry is considered to be a type of lung function test that would measure how much air you could breathe out.

It also helps in measuring how fast you can blow air out. During the test, the technician would ask you to take a deep breath in. Then, you would ask to blow as hard into the tube connected to small machine.

There are certain things that can make the PFTs less accurate.

These include the following:

• Not be able to follow the instructions for doing this test.
• For example- using medicines that open the airways (bronchodilators)

Before The Test

• You are expected to not eat, not smoke, or exercise for around 4-8 hours before the testing.
• You are requested to wear loose-fitting clothing.

Most important values of PFT are as follows:

• Forced Vital Capacity (FVC)
• Forced Expiratory Volume In One Second (FEV1),
• FEV1/FVC Ratio

The Spirometry is not able to measure your residual volume or total lung capacity.

The PFTs are used in diagnoses of a lung condition if the patients experience symptoms such as the following:

• Shortness of Breath - Dyspnea

PFTs might used to diagnose or help in the following:

• Treat Lung Diseases e.g. Cystic Fibrosis
• Lung Damage Due To The Workplace or any Home Exposure

The Infant PFT is usually a useful tool in being able to identify and manage the high-risk in the pediatric pneumonia patients who might further need a closer monitoring along with follow-up after the hospital discharge, with  your referral to the pulmonologist and be required to repeat pulmonary function testing.

Measurements that taken from this test is essential in helping your doctor to diagnose asthma. The Forced Expiratory Volume is the first second (FEV 1) – measures amount of the air you could forcefully blow out in first second of your FVC. In case, this number is lower than what is considered normal, it may mean asthma.

The Spirometry and the PFT testing are known to be a solution for the proactive cardiologist.

Spirometry is considered to be a lung-health specific diagnostic tool; it also plays an important role in assessing your cardiovascular risk, including any coronary artery disease.

Normal findings of Spirometry are considered as your FEV1/FVC ratio, If this value is greater than your 0.70, both FEV1 and FVC above value of 80% of the predicted value.

 If the lung volumes are also performed, the TLC above a value of 80% of predictive value is considered normal.

The Diffusion capacity above the value of 75% of predicted value is also considered as normal.

The pulmonary function testing equips your healthcare provider to further diagnose any conditions that could affect the lungs.

The PFTs generally don't take a long time, they aren't also not considered painful and you could also get the results in few days.

PFTS should only be performed to three times to further ensure that your results are reproducible (that is less than the 200ml variation) and also accurate.

The vital capacity (VC) is considered to be maximum volume that is expired after maximum inspiration.

The VC is decreased in any of the restrictive disease but also usually normal in any obstructive disease.

It has been demonstrated that the expert panels could reach up to 77% accuracy when predicting diagnosis based on the PFTs and with the clinical history alone.

The value is considered to be usually abnormal if it is approximately less than 80% of the predicted value.

Any Normal value range might vary slightly among your different laboratories, based on any slightly different ways to determine any normal values.

You could also talk to your healthcare provider about meaning of any specific test results.