Clinical applications of infant lung function testing

The studies in this thesis show that research in the field of lung function testing in infants has moved from methodological issues towards clinical applications. This development is mainly the result of publications of guidelines for infant lung function testing and standardization of the equipment used, by the European Respiratory Society en de American Thoracic Society (ERS/ATS) (7-10). As a result, normative data have become available for different lung function methods, allowing comparison of data from different centers. In addition, several biomedical engineering companies have marketed equipment with specifications according to the guidelines given by the ERS/ATS. These developments are a necessity for wide applications of infant lung function testing in a clinical setting, such as collaborative studies and multicenter drug trials in infants with airway disease (II). On the other hand, there are high costs for buying complete recording systems and training the staff. In addition, most methods require sedation of the infant. Therefore, infant lung function measurements will probably be established primarily in larger, mostly academic, centers. The forthcoming challenges for those involved in this field will be to develop methods that are cheap to buy and simple to use, still providing essential information. These methods should be applicable in infants without sedation. When this has been achieved, infant lung function testing may even move out of the clinic (II).

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