This statement provides practical guidelines and suggestions for methacholine and exercise challenging testing. Specifically, it reviews indications for these challenges, details factors that influence the results, presents brief step-by-step protocols, outlines safety measures, describes proper patient preparation and procedures, provides an algorithm for calculating results, and offers guidelines for clinical interpretation of results. The details are important because methacholine and exercise challenge tests are, in effect, dose-response tests and delivery of the dose and measurement of the response must be accurate if a valid test is to be obtained. These guidelines are geared to patients who can perform good-quality spirometry tests; they are not appropriate for infants or preschool children. They are not intended to limit the use of alternative protocols or procedures that have been established as acceptable methods. We do not discuss the general topic of bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR). 100 mg 100 mg 6.25 ml A: 16 mg/ml 3 ml of dilution A 9 ml B: 4 mg/ml 3 ml of dilution B 9 ml C: 1 mg/ml 3 ml of dilution C 9 ml D: 0.25 mg/ml 3 ml of dilution D 9 ml E: 0.0625 mg/ml * Schedule obtained from Methapharm (Brantford, ON, Canada). * This list is provided to simplify access to some sources of equipment. It is not a complete list of all possible sources of acceptable equipment.

To test the hypothesis that impairment after the adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is uncommon, we evaluated 41 ARDS survivors using ATS standards for determination of impairment. A total of 101 trials of pulmonary function tests were obtained between 1 and 388 wk after the onset of ARDS. It was possible to evaluate impairment at 1 yr or more after ARDS in 27 subjects. Eighteen of the 27 were impaired. The percentage of ARDS survivors who were impaired on the basis of FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and DLCOsb was 50.0, 61.1, 33.3, and 82.4%, respectively. Impairment was mild in 13 (72.2%), moderate in four (22.2%), and severe in one (5.6%). Smoking status had no predictive value in determining impairment. Physiologic indices of ARDS severity (maximal pulmonary artery pressure, lowest static thoracic compliance, and maximal level of PEEP) were found to be significantly different when those impaired 1 yr or more after ARDS were compared with those not impaired. Symptoms were found to have no association with impairment. We conclude that, using ATS criteria, impairment 1 yr or more after ARDS onset is common. Patient characteristics and symptoms after ARDS have no association with impairment 1 yr or more after ARDS onset, whereas physiologic indices of severity during ARDS do.

Maximum inspiratory and expiratory pressures were measured at residual volume, total lung capacity, and functional residual capacity in 45 morbidly obese patients who on average weighed 183% of their predicted weights. The pressures were compared to determinations made in 25 subjects of similar age whose mean weight was 99% of predicted. For both men and women, pressures generated by control subjects tended to be higher than those produced by obese patients but the differences were not statistically significant. The mean vital capacity and total lung capacity were also similar in the 2 subject groups. The results indicate that despite working constantly against a less compliant chest wall, obese patients do not increase their capacity to generate maximal respiratory pressures

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