Comparación de valores de referencia de capacidad de difusión de monóxido de carbono en clínica: cómo cambia la clasificación según grado de severidad

Abstract

Introduction: In recent years, the Global Lung Function Initiative (GLI) equations for Diffu- sing Capacity for Carbon Monoxide (DLCO) have been widely recommended. Objective: To assess whether these equations modify severity classification compared with the reference sets of Roca et al. and Crapo et al. Patients and Methods: This retrospective and comparative study was conducted bet- ween July and November 2023, using a 95% confidence level and a significance threshold of < 0.05. A total of 207participants (18-85 years) were analyzed at Clínica Universidad de Los Andes (Santia­go, Chile), 119 using the equations of Roca et al., 88 using those of Crapo et al. and all of them were assessed with GLI. Results: Transitioning from Roca et al. to GLI decreased the assigned severity grade in 30.20% of cases, while transitioning from Crapo et al. to GLI resulted in a 37.60% decrease. Conclusions: GLI reference values were significantly lower than those of Roca and Crapo (p =.001), altering both %DLCOc and z-scores, and yielding a higher proportion of patients classified as nor­mal.