PULMONARY FUNCTION LABORATORY
Our state-of-the-art pulmonary function test laboratory offers equipment for comprehensive evaluation for children with respiratory diseases.
The laboratory offers the following range of services:
- Spiromtery, lung volumes and diffusion capacity of the lungs
- Respiratory muscle strength testing
- Exercise stress testing
- Six-minute walk test
- Methacholine challenge
- Impulse oscillometry testing
PFTs are important for monitoring children's response to many different types of therapies and adjusting them accordingly. We also work in collaboration with other divisions within CHAM to provide PFTs to patients during their pre-surgical evaluations, for scoliosis surgery, bariatric surgery, pectus excavatum, etc. PFTs are also part of routine monitoring for patients with neuromuscular diseases, patients receiving cancer therapy, following bone marrow transplant and for evaluation of patients with sickle cell disease.
By performing exercise stress tests, our physicians are able to identify the causes of exercise limitation through physiology testing, which measures patients' pulmonary and cardiac function while they are exercising to maximum capacity and thus determine if pulmonary or cardiac mechanisms are limiting exercise performance. It can help to diagnose exercise induced bronchospasm and asthma. We can then design a specific treatment plan tailored to their particular condition.