• H Ben Saad, R Ben Attia Saafi, S Rouatbi, S Ben Mdella, A Garrouche, A Hadj Mtir, I Harrabi, Z Tabka, and A Zbidi.
• Service de Physiologie et des Explorations Fonctionnelles, EPS Farhat Hached, Sousse, Tunisie. helmi.bensaad@rns.tn
• Rev Mal Respir. 2007 Nov 1; 24 (9): 1107-15.

IntroductionThere is no clear consensus about what constitutes reversibility of airway obstruction. European Respiratory Society (ERS): Increase in FEV1 and/or FVC>12% of their theoretical value and>0.2l. British Thoracic Society: FEV1>15% of initial value and FEV1>0.2l. Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease: Increase in FEV1>12% and>0.2l. Australia and New Zealand Thoracic Society: Increase in FEV1 >15%. American Thoracic Society/ERS: Increase in FEV1>12% and>0.2l or increase in FVC>12% and 0.2l. Our principal objective was to determine the percentage of patients with COPD (n=62) who were significant responders to the reversibility test according to the 5 recommendations.MethodsPlethysmography was performed before and 15 minutes after inhalation of 400 micrograms of a short acting bronchodilator (BD). COPD is defined as a FEV1/FVC post BD<0.7.ResultsThe percentage of responders varied from 24% to 50% depending on the recommendations used.ConclusionReversibility of airway obstruction is recommendation dependent.

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