The early detection of airway obstruction.

To assess the sensitivity of tests for early, small airway obstruction, we selected 52 cigarette smokers with a ratio of 1-sec forced expiratory volume to forced vital capacity greater than 70 per cent from a smoking cessation clinic. From these subjects, 29 of the 46 tested demonstrated frequency dependence of dynamic compliance, a finding arbitrarily defined as indicative of small airway obstruction in this group. Dynamic compliance was correlated with the British Medical Research Council questionnaire, routine pulmonary function tests, closing volume as a per cent of vital capacity, maximal expiratory flow-volume curves, and flow dependence of distribution of inhaled boluses of xenon-133 (finite difference Xe). Symptoms of respiratory disease, and abnormal flow-volume curves, specific conductances, and ratios of residual volume to total lung capacity were also present in some subjects, but they correlated very poorly with frequency dependence of dynamic compliance. On the other hand, finite difference Xe was abnormal in 85 per cent of cases with frequency dependence of compliance and closing volume was abnormal in 70 per cent. In 8 of 12 subjects restudied 2 months after they stopped smoking, dynamic compliance was less frequency dependent than before smoking cessation. Similar improvements were noted in finite difference Xe, but closing volume was unchanged. Although closing volume and dynamic compliance tended to be abnormal in the same subject, concordance was not excellent, and the effects of smoking cessation suggested that the 2 tests had different determinants.