Extract
The carbon monoxide transfer factor (TLCO) reference equations published by the Global Lung Function Initiative (GLI) in 2017 [1] have a number of advantages compared to previously published equations [2–8], including that they are derived from a large dataset (9710 subjects), use modern equipment, cover a wide age range (5–85 years) obviating the need for separate paediatric and adult equations, and use more sophisticated statistical techniques to account for variation and skewness across the age range. Following the publication of the GLI equations there were a number of studies, such as ours, that examined the impact of changing to the new equations in clinical and research settings [9–12]. Our study [9] analysed a large clinical dataset of adult and paediatric TLCO results. It showed that adoption of GLI TLCO reference equations in adults would lead to altered interpretation depending on the equations previously used, with larger effects seen when changing from Crapo [3] and Roca [5] equations, and to a greater extent in adult females. The effect on interpretation in children was less significant.
Abstract
Updating to corrected GLI TLCO reference equations from the original GLI equations in a clinical population results in small changes in the lower limit of normal that are more pronounced in females, but there is minimal effect on test interpretation https://bit.ly/2MTdErd
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest: W.R. Ruehland has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of Interest: C.J. Lanteri has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of Interest: P. Matsas has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of Interest: D.J. Brazzale has nothing to disclose.
- Received December 9, 2020.
- Accepted February 4, 2021.
- Copyright ©The authors 2021. For reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions{at}ersnet.org