Many black men with 'normal' lung function may actually have emphysema (Race-adjustment calculation was wrong)

Medical Xpress / American Thoracic Society / ATS 2022 ^ | May 16, 2022 | Gabrielle Liu, MD et al

[ConservativeMind]

A significant percentage of Black men found to have normal lung function after race-based adjustments to spirometry were actually found to have emphysema on their computed tomography (CT) scans, according to research.

"Black adults in the U.S. are more likely to have unrecognized emphysema than white adults. This is due in part to the normalization of lower lung function in people of color through race-specific interpretations of spirometry," said Gabrielle Liu, MD. "We found in this observational sample of middle-aged adults in the United States that 14.6 percent of Black men (vs. 1.7 percent of white men) with 'above-normal' spirometry based on race-specific equations were found to have emphysema on CT imaging. Our traditional measures of lung health based on race-specific spirometry may be considerably under-recognizing impaired respiratory health in Black individuals."

It is standard practice to interpret results from spirometry using race-specific norms, which leads to a decrease in the predicted lower limit of "normal" for FEV1 and FVC for Black patients. FEV1 is the maximum amount of air a person can forcibly exhale in one second and FVC is the forced vital capacity—maximum amount exhaled forcefully after breathing in deeply. The practice of race correction has no biological basis and is based on the mistaken belief, first proposed during colonial times, that Black individuals have smaller lungs.

Spirometry is a commonly used test of lung function in which a patient forcefully exhales into a mouthpiece that is connected to a spirometry machine.

"We found that significant racial disparities in emphysema prevalence occur predominantly among those with FEV1 between 80 and 120 percent of that predicted," said Dr. Liu. "This suggests that the greatest potential for misclassification using race-specific equations occurs among Black adults who are at risk for disease and who could potentially benefit from risk factor modification."

[ConservativeMind]

A race-adjustment has been detrimental to identification of emphysema for a very long time.

If you are black and had this test done, please talk with your doctor about this study.

[ConservativeMind]

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[NWFree]

Free crack pipes have consequences 🤪

[ifinnegan]

More idiocy that harms blacks in the guise of helping them.

[bwest]

It’s racist to capitalize black but not White.

[algore]

Is this ehy they finally banned menthol kools?

[miliantnutcase]

And Newports

[aquila48]

All races are the same - didn’t you get the memo?

[lee martell]

Whatever. Just tell the Govt. to keep their scaley claws off of my Malboro Menthol Ultra Lights!
I am not being victimized, and don’t need any BLM’ers to ‘Fix It For Me’.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

My dad smoked Kools from 1944 till his death in 1987. He never had any lung problems as he used the OLD METHOD of smoking.
Draw the smoke into your mouth, swallow it to the stomach, burp it back up and out. It bypassed the lungs. He died of a heart attack.

I remember him going to a doctor in 1960 for a checkup and asked the doctor if smoking was bad for him.

Doctor said: “Hell, these things won’t hurt you!” pulled out his pack and offered dad one, and they both lit up.
But remember, that was 1960.