Further simplification of a method for determination of residual lung volume

This paper describes a modification of the standard oxygen-dilution technique for determining residual lung volume, whereby rapid responding oxygen and carbon dioxide analyzers are used to determine the point of nitrogen equilibration, and a five-liter rebreathing bag is substituted for the standard spirometer. This simplified method reduced the total test time to five min or less for duplicate determinations, and eliminated the need for a nitrogen analyzer and a spirometer. This method was found to be both reliable (r = 0.99) and valid (r = 0.92), with a standard error of prediction of 125 ml, and a mean difference of only eight ml, when compared with the established oxygen-dilution technique on a sample of 76 healthy men and women, 19 to 55 years of age. In a subsample of 13 subjects, residual volume was also determined with the nitrogen washout technique, which correlated r = 0.89 and r = 0.91 with the established and modified oxygen-dilution techniques respectively. The use of assumed values for the initial and final alveolar concentrations of nitrogen did not appear to significantly influence the final results.