What is Spirometry test?
A spirometry test helps detect problems that relate to breathing problems or chronic lung conditions. It helps diagnose lung conditions and evaluate if treatment for a chronic lung condition is helping the person to breathe better.
Who undergoes Spirometry test?
Experts recommend the test after they trace the symptoms of Asthma, Chronic bronchitis, Emphysema, Pulmonary fibrosis in a person.
Spirometry helps experts evaluate the efficiency of medicines in rectifying the breathing rate, check control on the intensity of breathing problems, and sometimes it becomes essential to check the efficiency of lungs before performing rigorous surgery.
It also helps screening occupational-related lung disorders.
How the test is done?
A spirometry test needs a person to breathe for a few seconds in a spirometer tube. The technician will close the nostrils with a clip and make sure that your lips seal around the opening of the spirometer so that no air leaks out. A person needs to repeat the breathing process three times to maintain consistency in results. High variation in recordings of three times may arise the need to repeat the process. After completing one round of tests, a doctor gives medicine to inhale and asks the person to repeat the measurements. The doctor evaluates and compares the two measurements and sees if the medicine improves airflow.
Results
Doctors assess the Forced vital capacity (FVC), the largest amount of air a person exhales, and Forced vital capacity (FVC), how much air a person can force out from the lung.