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Home spirometry and asthma severity in children
A F J Brouwer1, R J Roorda, P L P Brand
1Princess Amalia Children's Clinic, Isala klinieken, PO Box 10500, 8000 GM Zwolle, The Netherlands. a.f.j.brouwer@isala.nl
The European Respiratory Journal
|July 28, 2006
Summary
Home spirometry monitoring for childhood asthma shows poor reliability. Electronic peak expiratory flow and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) variations do not consistently correlate with other asthma severity indicators.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Pulmonology
- Respiratory Medicine
- Asthma Research
Background:
- Peak expiratory flow (PEF) monitoring in childhood asthma is debated due to unreliable paper diaries.
- Electronic spirometry offers automatic data storage, potentially improving home monitoring accuracy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the correlation between home spirometry (PEF and FEV1) variations and other asthma severity markers in children.
- To evaluate the utility of electronic home spirometry in managing mild-to-moderate persistent childhood asthma.
Main Methods:
- 36 children with mild-to-moderate persistent asthma used electronic home spirometers twice daily for 3 months.
- Recorded PEF and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) electronically, alongside a written asthma severity score.
- Assessed bronchial responsiveness, bronchodilator response, and asthma-specific quality of life.
Main Results:
- Variations in PEF showed weak correlations with bronchial responsiveness and bronchodilator response.
- No significant correlation was found between PEF variations and asthma severity scores or quality-of-life scores.
- Within-individual correlations between home spirometry indices and other asthma markers were highly variable.
Conclusions:
- Home spirometry (PEF and FEV1) shows poor concordance with other indices of asthma activity in children.
- The variability limits the clinical usefulness of home spirometry for monitoring childhood asthma.
- Electronic monitoring does not fully overcome the limitations of traditional PEF diaries.
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