Abstract
The WINDMILL®, a device of measuring forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), was compared with a hot-wired autospirometer (AS-1500, Minato Ikagaku, Tokyo, Japan). The WINDMILL® showed FVC and FEV1 with calculating the rolling numbers of eight windmills, which were 10mm wide and 30mm length, by a forced expiration. Fifteen healthy subjects, aged 23 to 33 years, showed good correlations except FVC in males (r=0.60) between two devices. Thirty four asthmatic patients, aged 6 to 22 years, showed correlations in FVC (over 2.0L: r=0.88, less than 2L: r=0.12) and in FEV1 (over 1.5L: r=0.97, less than 1.5L: r=0.67).
This device showed lower values in both FVC and FEV1 compared to a hot-wired autospirometer especially in the case of subjects with low flow levels. In elder children, however this can be useful because of its producibility and good correlations with the autospirometer.
