Source: Annual Congress 2003 - Assessing airway function: practicalities and clinical applications
Disease area: Airway diseases

Abstract

The negative expiratory pressure (NEP) technique is a simple, rapid, noninvasive method for detecting expiratory flow limitation (EFL) during spontaneous breathing.
The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of EFL during resting breathing in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients; and whether EFL is associated with dyspnoea. EFL was assessed with NEP method and conventional method, based on comparison of tidal and maximal expiratory flow-volume curves obtained with body plethysmography.
We studied 34 CF patients with the NEP technique and conventional method. Spirometry and body plethysmography were also performed. Dyspnoea was assessed according to the modified Medical Research Council (MRC) scale. The EFL portion of the tidal expiration was expressed as percentage fraction of the control tidal volume (%Vt).
With NEP, 6 patients were EFL. The FL patients were characterized by severe chronic dyspnoea (MRC score) and greater pulmonary hyperinflation and airway obstruction. By contrast, 20 patients were classified as EFL with the conventional method. Using Spearman’s rank correlation, we found that there were significant correlations between dyspnoea scale and EFL, lung function parameters.
In conclusion, most stable CF patients do not exhibit tidal EFL during resting breathing; detection EFL may be useful in the evaluation of dyspnoea; and the conventional method for assessing EFL may lead to erroneous conclusions.

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Citations should be made in the following way:
A. Cherniak, S. Avdeev, E. Amelina, Z. R. Aisanov (Moscow, Russia). Negative expiratory pressure method for detection of expiratory flow limitation in cystic fibrosis patients. Eur Respir J 2003; 22: Suppl. 45, 3623

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