An official website of the United States government
10 Center Drive, Bldg 10 CRC/5NEN, Bethesda, MD, 20814, US Pulmonary Function Lab
The Pulmonary Function Laboratory provides comprehensive and specialized testing of pulmonary physiology including lung function, exercise testing, respiratory muscle strength, gas exchange, and exhaled breath markers. Testing is done in support of clinical needs and research protocols for inpatients and outpatients from all centers and institutes working within the NIH Clinical Center. Mark Barton, RRT, RPFT serves as the Lab Manager and Dr. Andrew Lipton serves as the Medical Director.
Tests
Pulmonary function tests are breathing tests to find out how well your lungs are working. The most common tests are:
- Spirometry:This typically involves having you take a fast deep inhalation in, then immediately blasting air out to measure total volume as well as the maximum you can exhale at certain timepoints. Sometimes this measurement is made before and after using a bronchodilator medication to dilate your airways.
- Diffusion Studies: This measures how well oxygen moves from your lungs into your blood by having you take a deep breath of a gas mixture and hold it for a few seconds.
Lung volume measurements:This measures the total amount of air in your lungs. We can measure this two ways:
- Body plethysmography- you breathe in and out though the machine while sitting in a closed plexiglass booth.
- Nitrogen washout- you breathe through the machine while breathing 100% oxygen for a few minutes.
- Six minute walk test:Youwalk for six minutes on a walk test course set up in our hallway.
Learn More The Science The mission of the Pulmonary Function Lab is to perform comprehensive evaluation of respiratory function at rest and during exercise to assist in grading lung f