The 2005 ATS/ERS spirometry standard make it permissible and even recommends that the FVC and FEV1 be selected from different efforts. I disagree somewhat with their criteria for selecting the FEV1 but overall reporting composite results makes a lot of sense. In an ideal world we’d always get the best FVC and FEV1 in a single effort but what we more often get is a good FEV1 with a poor FVC or a poor FEV1 with a good FVC. So, it best serves the clinical needs of the patient to report the best elements from multiple spirometry efforts.
However, I was disappointed that the 2017 ATS reporting standards did not in any way address how to indicate that composite results are being reported, nor does it resolve the selection of the flow-volume loops and volume-time curves that accompany the numerical results. That leaves it to us to decide how to do this but this in turn is often limited by the capabilities of our equipment’s software.
One test system that I routinely take to a free spirometry screening clinic will only report the three “best” efforts based solely on the largest combined FVC + FEV1. Admittedly, to some extent this follows the 2005 ATS/ERS spirometry standards selection criteria but other than deleting a specific test effort I cannot override these selections nor can I mix and match the FVC and FEV1 values. This means that what it reports as the “best” effort doesn’t always agree with what in reality are the best results.
My lab’s software however, allows us to select which test efforts the FVC and FEV1 come from. In addition we can select which test effort the ancillary measurements (Peak Flow, Expiratory Time, FIVC, FEF50, etc.) and which effort the flow-volume loop and volume-time graphs comes from.
It is therefore possible to select the FVC, FEV1, ancillary measurements and the graphs from entirely different test efforts. Thankfully, this almost never done but when I review reports what I see most frequently is that the FVC is selected from one test effort, but the FEV1, ancillary measurements and graphs are selected from another. To some extent this makes sense because I’d usually agree that the Peak Flow should always be associated with the FEV1, and if that’s the case, then so should the flow-volume loop. The problem with this is that the FVC often comes from a test effort with a substantially longer expiratory time and when results are selected this the volume-time curve and expiratory time are instead reported for the effort the FEV1 came from.
This leads to a report that look like this:
Observed: | Predicted: | %Predicted: | |
FVC: | 2.62 | 3.65 | 72% |
FEV1: | 2.01 | 2.58 | 78% |
FEV1/FVC: | 77 | 72 | 107% |
Peak Flow: | 8.83 | 6.73 | 131% |
Exp. Time: | 1.20 |
with graphs like: