What pulmonary function test is affected in COPD and why?
It would be the Spirometry test. The test basically measures how much air you can blow into a machine. People with COPD would generally have a low reading, which indicates that you have narrowed restricted airways. Although this can happen with other lung problems like Asthma, there are other typical symptoms of COPD. A diagnosis is usually made with symptoms, patient hsitory and a low value Spirometry reading. Edit Hi Dave, that’s not what we do here in the UK. Not initially anyway. You must be in the US? Spirometry alone does not always separate asthma from COPD and other lung conditions I agree, but we generally only do the further tests if the diagnosis is less than clear. My answer wasn’t very thorough, so I’ll elaborate, basically, as I explained in my original answer, in most cases the diagnosis of COPD is made by the combination of the clinical history, signs and baseline spirometry. Reversibility testing does not add any additional information. Longitudinal observation of pati
