Re-breathing DLCO may not be well known because this technique has not been used in routine clinical testing. It has instead been primarily used to research diffusing capacity during exercise because it is able to do this without the need to interrupt or significantly alter a subject’s breathing pattern.
Re-breathing DLCO is probably best thought of as a hybrid between the single-breath DLCO and steady-state DLCO techniques. The gas mixture and calculations are from the single-breath world but the breathing pattern is more from the steady-state side of the family.