[Spirometric reference values in the Senegalese child and adolescent aged 6 to 23 years]

The authors have studied five hundred sixty spirographs of children and adolescents of the two sexes. Two hundred seventy four girls an two hundred eighty six boys--all of them are pupils in two schools of Dakar. The exploitation to the results shows a significant deficit of the spirometric reference values found in our specimen of population with regard to the reference norms, established from an european population of the same age height and sex. The explanation is an anthropometric difference, the west-african black population is macroskeletal, the trunk being proportionately shorter than the limbs. Knowing that the data proved in different african countries are not systematically superimposable, this work find his interest in the applications in medical practice, in general or thoracic surgery, in epidemiologic studies and for the assessment of sequela in forensic medicine.