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Special ReportOffice Spirometry for Lung Health Assessment in Adults: A Consensus Statement From the National Lung Health Education Program
Section snippets
Recommendation
Primary-care providers (PCPs) should perform an office spirometry test for patients ≥ 45 years old who report smoking cigarettes (current smokers and those who quit during the previous year) in order to detect COPD.
Rationale: Several well-recognized criteria have been established for the use of medical tests that have been proposed for the early detection of disease,30, 3132, 3334 and spirometry for the detection of COPD in adult cigarette smokers fulfills all of these criteria:
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The disease, if
Recommendation
A new category of spirometers, office spirometers, should be available for use in the primary-care setting. Each new model must successfully pass a validation study (see Appendix 1).
Rationale: Traditionally, spirometry has been used as a diagnostic test, with the usefulness and accuracy of spirometry measurements depending on both the equipment and proper test performance. Although simple to learn, spirometry is an effort-dependent test that requires a cooperative patient and a trained person
Background
The NLHEP recommends the widespread use of spirometry by PCPs for detecting COPD in adult smokers and describes a new type of spirometer for this purpose: the office spirometer. The value of spirometry for aiding the diagnosis of COPD and asthma, when performed by trained technicians using diagnostic spirometers that meet current ATS recommendations, is widely accepted. The accuracy and precision of diagnostic-quality spirometry performed in the hospital PF laboratory, pulmonary research
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Millicent Higgins from the University of Michigan, David Mannino from the Center for Disease Control, and Gregory Wagner and Kathleen Fedan from the National Institute for Occupational Safety, who collaborated to provide new analyses for this document from the NHANES III database.
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Although representatives from NIOSH participated in the NLHEP conferences and reviewed drafts of this document, official approval from NIOSH was not obtained.
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A complete list of NHLBI/ACCP Consensus Conference participants, NHLBI-sponsored NLHEP Conference participants, members of the Spirometry Subcommittee of the NLHEP, and members of the Executive Committee of the NLHEP is located in Appendix 2