Pulmonary function between 6 and 18 years of age

TLDR

The study provides race‑, sex‑, and age‑specific regression equations based on height to evaluate adolescent pulmonary growth with greater accuracy and enable comparison of repeated measures in individual children. Using 82,462 annual measurements of FVC, FEV1, and FEF25‑75% from 11,630 white and 989 black children aged 6–18, the authors generated race‑ and sex‑specific percentile growth curves for each centimeter of height. They found that, at the same height, boys exceed girls and whites exceed blacks; lung function rises linearly with age until the adolescent growth spurt (≈10 yr in girls, 12 yr in boys), and the height‑lung function relationship shifts during adolescence, so a single equation or chart alone is insufficient, but the growth curves facilitate evaluation of repeated measures. © 1993 Wiley‑Liss, Inc.

Abstract

Abstract Pulmonary function of children aged 6–18 years is described based on 82,462 annual measurements of forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expired volume in 1 second (FEV 1 ), and forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75%of FVC (FEF 25–75% ) from 11,630 white children and 989 black children. Median height, FVC, FEV 1 FEV 1 /FVC 1 and FEF 25–75% for each 3 months of age are compared among race and sex subgroups. Race— and sex‐specific percentile distributions of FVC, FEV 1 , FEV 1 /FVC, and FEF 25—75% are presented for each centimeter of height (growth curves). For the same height, boys have greater lung function values than girls, and whites have greater ones than blacks. Lung function increases linearly with age until the adolescent growth spurt at about age 10 years in girls and 12 in boys. The pulmonary function vs. height relationship shifts with age during adolescence. Thus, a single equation or the pulmonary function‐height growth chart alone does not completely describe growth during the complex adolescent period. Nevertheless, race‐ and sex‐specific growth curves of pulmonary function vs. height make it easy to display and evaluate repeated measures of pulmonary function for an individual child. Race‐, sex‐, and age‐specific regression equations based on height are provided, which permit the evaluation of growth during adolescence with improved accuracy and, more importantly, in comparison with previous observations for the same child. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.