Cystic fibrosis: diagnosis and management

Recommendation ID: NG78/3
Question: Monitoring pulmonary disease:- Is lung clearance index a useful and cost-effective tool for the routine assessment and monitoring of changes in pulmonary status in people with cystic fibrosis?
Any explanatory notes (if applicable): Why this is important:- Assessing the severity of lung disease is difficult in younger children. Not all children under 5 years can do spirometry tests and they are not sufficiently sensitive in people with good lung function, where CT scans can show pulmonary status changes before spirometry changes. A simple, sensitive and reproducible measurement such as lung clearance index allows assessment of respiratory status in people with cystic fibrosis, and could improve clinical decision-making.

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Is this a recommendation for the use of a technology only in the context of research?	No
Is it a recommendation that suggests collection of data or the establishment of a register?	No
Last Reviewed	31/10/2017