Abstract

NOSE CLIP IN SPIROMETRY-TO USE OR NOT TO USE?

Senthil Kumar K, Viswanatha Rao B and Prema Sembulingam*

Abstract

Spirometry is an easy, reliable and reproducible test in diagnosis and prognosis of respiratory diseases. While recording spirogram in spirometer, nose clip is applied invariably to close the nose. But whether it is necessary to apply the nose clip or not is debatable. Literature says that it can be used but not necessary. Some experimental evidences show that using nose clip has no significant impact on the recorded values of spirogram. These non-committal controversies intrigued us to venture into the present study. 54 normal young and healthy subjects of both genders were recruited from Madha Medical College & Research Institute, Chennai. After training them to perform the maneuver, spirogrm was recorded first with nose clip on and then nose clip off in the same individual with sufficient time interval between the two procedures. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in first second (FEV1) and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were selected for analysis. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the values of the variables between the two methods of recording making us to conclude that wearing nose clip is not necessary while recording, spirogram.

Keywords: Nose clip, Pulmonary function test, Spirogram, Spirometer, Spirometry.