The utility of hand-held mobile spirometer technology in a resource-constrained setting

BACKGROUND: Mobile phone-linked spirometry technology has been designed specifically for evaluating lung function at primary care level. The Air-Smart Spirometer is the first mobile spirometer accepted in Europe for the screening of patients with chronic respiratory diseases OBJECTIVES: To prospectively assess the accuracy of the device in measuring forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) in a South African population, and to investigate the ability of the device to detect obstructive ventilatory impairment METHODS: A total of 200 participants were randomly assigned to perform spirometry with either the mobile spirometer connected to a smartphone or the desktop spirometer first, followed by the other. The FEV1/FVC ratio as well as the absolute FEV1 and FVC measurements were compared, using each participant as their own control. A Pearson correlation and Bland-Altman analysis were performed to measure the agreement between the two devices. We defined obstructive ventilatory impairment as FEV1/FVC <0.7 measured by desktop spirometry in order to calculate the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the Air-Smart Spirometer RESULTS: There was a strong correlation between the absolute FEV1 and FVC values and FEV1/FVC ratio measured with the mobile AirSmart Spirometer and more conventional pulmonary function testing, with r=0.951, r=0.955 and r=0.898, respectively. The Air-Smart Spirometer had a sensitivity of 97.6%, specificity of 74.4%, PPV of 73.0% and NPV of 97.8% for obstructive ventilatory impairment CONCLUSIONS: The mobile Air-Smart Spirometer compared well with conventional spirometry, making it an attractive and potentially affordable tool for screening purposes in a primary care setting. Moreover, it had a high sensitivity and NPV for obstructive ventilatory impairment

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	du Plessis,E, Swart,F, Maree,D, Heydenreich,J, van Heerden,J, Esterhuizen,T M, Irusen,E M, Koegelenberg,C F N
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	South African Medical Association 2019
Online Access:	http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-95742019000400011
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!