• Pediatr Int · Jun 2009

    Comparative Study

    Plethysmographic lung volumes in children with sighing dyspnea.

    • Kin-Sun Wong, Chih-Yung Chiu, Yu-Hsuan Huang, and Li-Ju Huang.
    • Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, Chang Gung Children's Hospital, Chang Gung University, College of Medicine, 5, Fu Hsin Street, Taoyuan, Taiwan. pchest@adm.cgmh.org.tw
    • Pediatr Int. 2009 Jun 1;51(3):405-8.

    BackgroundThis study compared the plethysmographic lung volumes of children with sighing dyspnea with healthy children and tested the hypothesis that sighing children suffer from hyperinflation or gas trapping as a cause of dyspnea.MethodsFrom January 2006 to December 2006, pediatric patients with sighing dyspnea presenting to the pulmonary clinic of a tertiary children's hospital who had no apparent cardiopulmonary diseases were prospectively enrolled; normal healthy children were invited to participate for comparison. Baseline pre-bronchodilator spirometry and post-inhaled bronchodilator spirometry were measured for the determination of bronchodilator response. Plethysmographic lung volumes were determined solely for total lung capacity, residual volume (RV) and functional residual capacity (FRC) without the use of inhaled bronchodilator according to standard procedure.ResultsEighteen sighing children (10 boys) and 10 healthy subjects (six boys) were included in the present study. They had a median age of 13 years (range, 8-15 years) and 13 years (range, 8-17 years), respectively. The mean baseline forced vital capacity (FVC) of subjects with dyspnea was 79.4 +/- 16.7% of predicted, while that of the normal control children was 88.4 +/- 6.7%, which was not statistically significantly different. Forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV(1)), FEV(1)/FVC % of predicted were within normal limits and indicated no bronchodilator response. RV and RV/total lung capacity (TLC) were elevated in children with sighing dyspnea that were not measured by spirometry, but TLC and FRC measured on plethysmography (FRC(pleth)) were not increased.ConclusionsRV and RV/TLC were higher in children with sighing dyspnea that were not measured by spirometry, but TLC and FRC(pleth) were not increased. The causal link between dysfunctional breathing patterns and changes in static lung volumes was not able to be determined in the present study. The possibility of heterogeneity of patients with sighing dyspnea obscures the significance of lung volume discrepancy in this population; further subdivision of children with sighing dyspnea in a larger cohort of patients is required.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.