ONKOCET Ltd. has exhibited the devices from its portfolio on the MEDTEC UK exhibition in Birmingham, April 2011 through our partner Medical & Partners.
Spirometry - most extended study of respiratory function in medicine. Spirometry is assigned with the wide circle of indications, including for the development of the diseases of lungs, for the evaluation of the degree of disease difficulty or disturbance of the function of lungs, influence of professional or ecological factors, effectiveness of therapy, risk with the surgical interventions, and also the disablement. Furthermore, spirometry is widely used in epidemiological and other studies.
By the 1840’s, John Hutchinson, a surgeon, had begun his work with spirometers.
He invented the spirometer to measure vital capacity of lungs, which he believed to be a powerful indicator of longevity. His spirometer consisted of a calibrated bell inverted in water, which captured exhaled air from the lungs. He classified the persons for example as 'Paupers', 'First Battalion Grenadier Guards', 'Pugilists and Wrestlers', 'Giants and Dwarfs', 'Girls', 'Gentleman', 'Deceased cases'”. This indicates that Hutchinson knew how vital capacity was linked to health. More specifically, “it is useful in identifying patients at risk for many diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, heart attack, and stroke”. Hutchinson’s water spirometer is still used today with few alterations, which include the reduction of the mass of the bell and the addition of graphic and timing devices.
Then followed the large number of improvements, most important of which was the chronometric of the forced expiration, which, in the final analysis, led to putting into clinical practice the volume of the forced expiration in 1st second (FEV1) for evaluating the bronchial obstruction.
More lately it was added mapping the breathed out volumes against the time and escaping from this moment indices of flow, which characterize the function of the respiratory tract.
Since the beginning 1950 years, for the market left the mass of the spirometric devices, which primarily measure either the volume or flow, and being differed in the possibilities and the perfection.
Hutchinson´s spirometer