Pulmonary function test in healthy school children of 8 to 14 years age in south Gujarat region, India

Abstract

Objective:To obtain reference values for FEV1, FVC, FEV1% and PEFR among children aged 8-14 years in south Gujarat region of India.Materials and Methods:This cross-sectional study was conducted among 655 normal healthy school children (408 boys and 247 girls) of Surat city aged 8 to 14 years studying in V to VII standard during November 2007 to April 2008. Height, weight, body surface area were measured. All included children were tested in a sitting position with the head straight after taking written consent from parents. Spirometry was done using the spirometer “Spirolab II” MIR 010. Spirometer used in the study facilitates the total valuation of lung function including forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced expiratory volume ratio in one second (FEV1%) and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR).Results:FVC, FEV1 and PEFR were found to be statistically significant in the study groups. For FVC and FEV1, highest correlation was found with age in girls and height in boys. For FEV1%, significant negative correlation was found with age and height in both sexes, but positive correlation was found with surface area. Similarly, PEFR showed highest correlation with surface area in boys and girls.Conclusion:Variables such as FVC, FEV1 and PEFR show good positive correlation with height, age and body surface area in both sexes. There is a need to have regional values for the prediction of normal spirometric parameters in a country like India with considerable diversity.

Pulmonary function of adolescents from Tripura, a North-eastern state of India

“…Table 3 represents comparison of various pulmonary function parameters recorded in different groups of Indian children recently. [ 16 17 18 19 20 ] It shows that various parameters recorded in our study is comparable with that from other groups of children. The variations in values may be due variation in age group included and method and sensitivity of study protocol employed.…”

“…A comparison of recently reported regression equations among Indian children is represented in Table 8 . [ 17 18 19 20 21 22 ] Most of these equations used age, height, weight of the subject as predictors of pulmonary function. Pulmonary function in our subjects showed positive correlation with markers of obesity like BMI, WHtR, and WHR, for this reason, we utilized these parameters in regression equation.…”

“…Similarly, PEFR showed highest correlation with surface area in boys and girls. [ 18 ] Various earlier studies on children from India mostly used age, height and weight as predictor for pulmonary function. [ 34 35 36 ]…”

Longitudinal Lung Function Growth of Mexican Children Compared with International Studies

“…Lung function, an important component of the evaluation of children with respiratory problems, is influenced by gender, height, and age, but also by prenatal exposures, genetic factors, ethnicity, obesity, altitude of place of residence, tobacco smoking, air pollution, nutrition, socioeconomic level, and lung disease [2]. While for the majority of purposes having a longitudinal evaluation of pulmonary function is ideal, an individual’s lung function is usually compared with reference values obtained from cross-sectional studies, which are much more readily available [3-6]. The pattern of increase in lung function may differ if obtained from longitudinal or cross-sectional studies [7-9] because in the latter, the effects of age on lung function (lung function growth), the main objective, are confounded with secular time (period effect) and the so-called cohort effect result of the presence of the multiple birth cohorts assembled in a cross-sectional study [2].…”

Peak expiratory flow rate of healthy school children living at high altitude

“…[5678] However, there is a dearth of studies which have attempted to investigate the effect of altitude on lung function. Although a few studies have attempted to compare the PEFR values of highlander and lowlander populations, the effect of altitude on lung function has still not been decisively established, due to the conflicting results reported by these studies.…”