Fulltext

Geographical variation in lung function: Results from the multicentric cross-sectional BOLD study

Burney PGJ 1 , Potts J 1 , Knox-Brown B 1 , Erhabor G 2 , Hacene Cherkaski H 3 , Mortimer K 4 Show all authors , Anand MP 5 , Mannino DM 6 , Cardoso J 7 , Ahmed R 8 , Elsony A 8 , Barbara C 9 , Nielsen R 10 , Bateman E 11 , Paraguas SNM 12 , Cher Loh L 13 , Rashid A 13 , Wouters EF 14 , Franssen FM 15 , Dias HB 16 , Gislason T 17 , Ghobain MA 18 , Biaze ME 19 , Agarwal D 20 , Juvekar S 20 , Rodrigues F 21 , Obaseki DO 2 , Koul PA 22 , Harrabi I 23 , Nafees AA 24 , Seemungal T 25 , Janson C 26 , Vollmer WM 27 , Amaral AF 1 , Buist AS 28

Affiliations 

  • 1 National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK
  • 2 Department of Medicine, Obafemi Awolowo University/Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Osun, Nigeria
  • 3 Department of Pulmonology, Faculty of Medicine, University Badji Mokhtar, Annaba, Algeria
  • 4 Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • 5 Department of Respiratory Medicine, JSS Medical College, JSSAHER, Mysuru, India
  • 6 Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
  • 7 Pulmonology Department, Centro Hospitalar Universitário de Lisboa Central, Lisboa, Portugal
  • 8 The Epidemiological Laboratory (Epi-Lab), Khartoum, Sudan
  • 9 Instituto de Saúde Ambiental, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 10 Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  • 11 Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town and UCT Lung Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 12 Philippine College of Chest Physicians, Manila, Philippines
  • 13 Department of Public Health, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and University College Dublin Malaysia Campus, Penang, Malaysia
  • 14 Faculty of Medicine, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria
  • 15 Department of Respiratory Medicine, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, the Netherlands
  • 16 Lisbon School of Health Technology, Polytechnic of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 17 Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
  • 18 Department of Medicine, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
  • 19 Department of Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Fes, Morocco
  • 20 Vadu Rural Health Program, KEM Hospital Research Centre, Pune, India
  • 21 Serviço de Pneumologia, Centro Hospitalar Universitário Lisboa Norte, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 22 Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Sheri Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, India
  • 23 Ibn El Jazzar Faculty of Medicine of Sousse, University of Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia
  • 24 Department of Community Health Sciences, The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan
  • 25 Department of Clinical Medical Sciences, The University of The West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
  • 26 Department of Medical Sciences, Respiratory Allergy and Sleep Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
  • 27 Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Portland, OR, USA
  • 28 Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA
Pulmonology, 2025 Dec 31;31(1):2430491.
PMID: 39641354 DOI: 10.1080/25310429.2024.2430491

Abstract

Spirometry is used to determine what is "unusual" lung function compared with what is "usual" for healthy non-smokers. This study aimed to investigate regional variation in the forced vital capacity (FVC) and in the forced expiratory volume in one second to FVC ratio (FEV1/FVC) using cross-sectional data from all 41 sites of the multinational Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease study. Participants (5,368 men; 9,649 women), aged ≥40 years, had performed spirometry, had never smoked and reported no respiratory symptoms or diagnoses. To identify regions with similar FVC, we conducted a principal component analysis (PCA) on FVC with age, age2 and height2, separately for men and women. We regressed FVC against age, age2 and height2, and FEV1/FVC against age and height2, for each sex and site, stratified by region. Mean age was 54 years (both sexes), and mean height was 1.69 m (men) and 1.61 m (women). The PCA suggested four regions: 1) Europe and richer countries; 2) the Near East; 3) Africa; and 4) the Far East. For the FVC, there was little variation in the coefficients for age, or age2, but considerable variation in the constant (men: 2.97 L in the Far East to 4.08 L in Europe; women: 2.44 L in the Far East to 3.24 L in Europe) and the coefficient for height2. Regional differences in the constant and coefficients for FEV1/FVC were minimal (<1%). The relation of FVC with age, sex and height varies across and within regions. The same is not true for the FEV1/FVC ratio.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

MeSH terms
Similar publications