Lung Function Testing in Young Patients

To diagnose and manage a child’s respiratory disease, doctors often rely on respiratory function testing: painless and noninvasive tests that assess various aspects of lung function including the size of the lungs; the speed and force with which air leaves the lungs; and how well oxygen crosses from the lungs into the blood vessels. Doctors can also measure changes in a child’s lung function over time or during ongoing therapy, or his or her immediate response to medications for asthma.

NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian Komansky Children's Hospital are among the few centers in the New York metropolitan area able to measure and monitor lung function in children of any age, including infants. At both centers, our highly skilled pediatric pulmonologists use the latest technologies and equipment to diagnosis and treat lung diseases and disorders in children and adolescents.

How Do We Measure Lung Function?

We perform the full range of pulmonary function tests including:

• Spirometry, which enables us to measure the force of a child’s breath.
• Impulse oscillometry, a test to assess airflow obstruction in children who are not able to perform a forced breathing test.
• Exercise pulmonary function testing, which monitors lung function following exercise.
• Cardiopulmonary exercise testing, to see how well the heart and lungs work while the child exercises.
• Total lung capacity (TLC), a test to calculates the child’s lung volume.
• Oxygen saturation, a test to measure the amount of oxygen being carried by the red blood cells.
• Medication evaluation, testing which is repeated after the child is medicated to evaluate the effectiveness of the medication.