Reproducibility of pulmonary function tests under laboratory and field conditions.

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Abstract
The reproducibility of pulmonary function tests in the laboratory and in a mobile field survey vehicle was studied. Groups of laboratory workers were studied at base and a random sample of 38 coalminers was examined in the mobile laboratory. The intra-subject variability of some newer tests of lung function, including closing volume and maximum flow at low lung volumes, has been compared with that of well-established tests, such as lung volumes and forced expiratory volume from 2 measurements made more than 1 day apart. Most measurements were slightly less reproducible in the study of coalminers than in the laboratory personnel. Conventional tests, such as forced expiratory volume in 1 s, lung volumes, single breath CO transfer factor, and exercise ventilation were very reproducible, the coefficients of variation (cov) being generally between 5 and 10%. The closing volume test, maximum expiratory flow at low lung volumes, and the single breath N2 index were less reproducible: cov between 15 and 39% in the miners. The forced expired time and volume of isoflow, measured only on laboratory workers exhibited greater reproducibility than previously reported (cov = 10 and 15%, respectively). When assessing the repeatability of lung function tests, account should be taken of the circumstances in which the intra-subject variability was measured.