Body plethysmographic measurement of thoracic gas volume without panting against a shutter

When a subject breathes through a pneumotachograph in a body box, the measured value of specific airway resistance (sRaw1) is equal to the product of thoracic gas volume (TGV) and the sum of the airway resistance (Raw) and the instrument resistance (Rins). If an additional resistance (Radd) is put in the breathing path, the measured specific, airway resistance (sRaw2) exceeds sRaw1 by the product of TGV and Radd and can be used for determining TGV. With the use of a device increasing Rins by a known amount (Radd) during normal breathing, sRaw1 and sRaw2 were measured in 3 normal subjects, 16 asthmatic patients, 2 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 1 patient with restrictive lung disease from the slopes of the x-y plots of airflow vs. box signals obtained before and after adding Radd. TGV was calculated by dividing (sRaw2-sRaw1) bu Radd. We also determined subjects' TGV by the panting method of A. B. DuBois, S. Y. Botelho, G. N. Bedell, and J. H. Comroe, Jr. (J. Clin. Invest. 35: 322-326, 1956) and functional residual capacity by the helium-dilution method. The results of the new method were quite reproducible (coefficient of variation = 5.6) and equivalent to those obtained by the other two methods.