A PFT measures how much air your lungs can hold and how efficiently you can move air in and out, which helps distinguish between different types of lung disease, such as asthma versus a restrictive condition. You'll be asked to breathe into a mouthpiece in specific ways, following the technician's instructions, and the whole test usually takes fifteen to twenty minutes. It's commonly advised for patients with chronic cough, wheeze, or breathlessness that doctors need to characterise more precisely.
Spirometry is a core part of the PFT and specifically measures how much air you can forcefully exhale and how fast, which is particularly useful in diagnosing and monitoring conditions like asthma and COPD. It's simple, quick, and repeated periodically for patients on long-term respiratory treatment to see whether their lung function is stable, improving, or declining. Your doctor may ask you to repeat the test after inhaler use to check how well the airways respond to medication.
For patients with ongoing respiratory symptoms, whether from a chronic condition or a lingering effect of infection, a broader respiratory assessment brings together clinical examination with relevant lung function tests to build a clearer picture. This helps the treating doctor understand the severity of the problem and track it over time, particularly useful for conditions that don't resolve quickly, such as post-infective cough or long-standing breathlessness that hasn't been fully explained elsewhere.
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