Utility of spirometry in early case-identification and diagnosis of suspected cases of obstructive lung diseases

 

Gaurav R Dubey¹, Anjali S Deshmukh^2*, Vijay R Kapse³

 

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Tb and Respiratory Medicine, Dr PDMMC Amravati, Maharashtra, INDIA.

²Assistant Professor, ³Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Dr.S.C.G.M.C.Nanded, Maharashtra, INDIA.

Email: dr.dranju@rediffmail.com

 

Abstract              Background: Spirometry is an essential investigation to confirm the clinical diagnosis of obstructive lung diseses as well as a useful investigation in assessing severity. Spirometry is also an important investigation in confirming the clinical diagnosis of asthma and evaluating asthma severity and pattern of airflow limitation. Aims and objective: To study the utility of Spirometry in early case-identification and diagnosis of obstructive pulmonary diseases. Materials and Method: All the patients of obstructive lung diseases attending the respiratory OPD during the January 2016 to June 2016 were enrolled in the present study. The patients not willing to participate the study were excluded. The detail demographic characteristics such as age, sex, occupation etc were inquired and were entered a prestructured proforma. The associated risk factors were also investigated and were recorded. The presenting symptoms were also recorded. Spirometry was performed with Morgan transfer test with Wyvern software integrated pulmonary function program. The collected data was entered in Microsoft excel and was analyzed and presented with appropriate tables and graphs. Results: Majority of the patients were male (59.32%). The mean age of the study patients was 46.26±16.71 years. 28.81% patients were having smoking habit. Majority of them were using bidi and 5 were female. Majority of the patients (45.7%) in the present study were having Obstruction with good BDR pattern on Spirometry followed by mixed pattern (15.2%) and obstruction with poor BDR (12.4%). Normal Spirometry pattern was observed in 11.2% patients, small airway pattern was seen in 10.7% and 4.51% patients were having restrictive pattern. The Severity of Obstruction (GOLD) was also assessed and it was seen that majority of the patients (59.09%) with poor BDR were having moderate obstruction whereas majority of the patients (59.26%) with good BDR were having sever obstruction. Conclusion: Thus we conclude that spirometry is helpful in differentiating various obstructive lung diseases. It also provides and objective record of the degree of obstruction to aid in prognosis and therapy. Also it quantifies the stage of the disease. Thus it can be concluded that Spirometry is a very useful but neglected tool in the diagnosis of various obstructive lung diseases.

Key Words: Obstructive pulmonary diseases, spirometry, diagnosis.