Abstract des Autors

The reference value for each spirometric variable is derived, in each subject, by using equations in which his age and anthropometric data (AD), as Standing Height (STH) are included. The aim of our study was to investigate if some AD different from STH could be used in predicting models of lung volumes. We studied 92 healthy males to evaluate agonistic certificate, mean age 20.5 years, 41% smokers. The AD measured were: STH, Sitting Height (SIH), Biacromial Width (BW) and End-Tidal Thoracic Circumference (ETTC). Each subject underwent a spirometry following American Thoracic Society criteria. Forced Vital Capacity Expiratory (FVCE) and Forced Expiratory Volume in one Second (FEV1) were the dependent variables in our models. Stepwise linear regression demonstrate that SIH was a better estimator than STH both for FVCE (final model r square=0.4648) and for FEV 1 (final model r square=0.3703; considering smoke habit, final model r square=0.4427). BW was significant in the multivariate model predicting FVCE and including SIH; the same result was true also for model predicting FEV1 when data were controlled for smoking habit of subjects. There were no significant differences regarding within-operator reproducibility. Only BW showed a little (<1 cm) significative difference regarding reproducibility between operators. Our data suggest that SIH and BW could be utilized to predict spirometric volumes. Verf.-Referat