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Updated: Nov 24, 2025
Conducting Respiratory Oscillometry in an Outpatient Setting
Published on: April 8, 2022
The roles of impulse oscillometry in detection of poorly controlled asthma in adults with normal spirometry
Warawut Chaiwong1,2, Sirianong Namwongprom2,3, Chalerm Liwsrisakun1
1Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Allergy, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Background:
Impulse oscillometry (IOS) has been introduced as a method of assessing asthma control. However, the cutoff IOS values for the detection of asthma control in adults are still unclear.
Objective:
To assess the diagnostic ability of IOS for distinguishing between poorly controlled and well controlled adult asthmatic subjects with normal spirometry.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study was conducted at the Lung Health Center, Chiang Mai, Thailand, between July 2019 and June 2020. IOS and spirometry were performed in all adult asthmatic subjects but only subjects with normal spirometry were enrolled. Poorly controlled asthma was defined in accordance with the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) plus an asthma control test (ACT) score ≤19. A Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted to detect poorly controlled asthma using the area under the ROC (AuROC) and 95%CI.
Results:
One hundred and forty-two adult asthmatic subjects registering normal spirometry with a mean age of 53.4 ± 15.8 years were enrolled. Eighty-nine (62.7%) subjects were female. IOS parameters including heterogeneity of resistance at 5 Hz and resistance at 20 Hz (R5-R20) and area under reactance (AX) demonstrated excellent detection of poorly controlled asthma with an AuROC of 0.911 and 0.904, respectively. The z-score or absolute value of R5-R20 ≥ 0 and 1 cmH2O/L/s, respectively, represented the highest AuROC of 0.86, with a sensitivity and a specificity of ≥80.0% for the detection of poorly controlled asthma.
Conclusion:
IOS is a valuable tool for the detection of poorly controlled asthma in adults with normal spirometry.
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