Welcome to this website. It serves as a platform for a group that is in the process of providing the world with prediction equations for pulmonary function, covering the age range from preschool children to elderly people. This entails a process that will take some time. Access to work in progress will be limited to registered members of the group.

Membership is in principle open to people

• involved in respiratory problems in industry
• who have a professional interest in the progress of this project, and/or wish to implement results once available
• who wish to contribute data
• who wish to assist with the analysis or interpretation of data.

 You can This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by submitting a form.

This site also forms a platform for the WOLFAP initiative, a worldwide effort to anchor high quality pulmonary function testing firmly in medicine through certification of laboratories and respiratory technologists. In addition, at this stage 4 organisations of respiratory technologists are hosted on this website.

PUBLICATION ABOUT GLI  FOR   AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF R  ESPIRATORY CARE (12 Dec. 2011)

Susan Blonshine, a member of the GLI network, has written an article to raise awareness of GLI activities amongst members of the American Association of Respiratory Care.

 FINAL REPORT GLI 2012 PREDICTION EQUATIONS SUBMITTED

A manuscript describing the new GLI 2012 equations has been submitted to the ERS for ‘pre-approval’ prior to being circulated to the other international respiratory societies for review and endorsement. Although this is likely to be a lengthy process we remain hopeful that the document will be approved in the next 4 months and rapidly made available on-line, so that the  manufacturers can implement within their devices in a timely fashion.

For those of you who are involved with developing and marketing of spirometry devices, we have also updated  the manufacturers’ instructions for implementation of these equations.

MINUTES FROM ERS MEETING AMSTERDAM

The summary of the meeting in Amsterdam is available here. The presentations are also available ERS Amsterdam Presentations for viewing. We appreciate all of the constructive feedback and ideas shared with the group, please check our website for further updates. 

IMPLEMENTATION OF STANOJEVIC 'ALL-AGE' EQUATIONS BY MANUFACTURERS

We regularly receive questions whether manufacturers have implemented the Stanojevic 2009 prediction equations for spirometry into their software. Since implementation of the ERS Global Lungs (ethnic specific) reference equations will use a similar format, any company that has already implemented the Stanojevic equations will be in an excellent position to rapidly upgrade once the ERS equations are published, which will hopefully be later this year. We have therefore conducted a limited survey. The results are accessible through this link.

MEETING FOR MEMBERS OF GLI NETWORK AT ATS IN DENVER

The summary of the meeting in Denver, devoted to results so far, is available from here. For the presentations follows these links: Phase 1 presentation and Phase 2 presentation.

ERS TASK FORCE approved by ERS (NEWS item June 11, 2010)

The ERS has recently approved an application for Task Force Status (April 2010-March 2012) from the Global Lungs Initiative which aims to develop improved ‘all-age’ spirometric reference equations that are applicable globally. This task force, which has also been endorsed by the ATS, APSR and ANZSRS is chaired by Janet Stocks (ERS), Xaver Baur (ERS), Graham Hall (ANZSRS) and Bruce Culver (ATS) with a steering committee which includes a statistical analytical group (Philip Quanjer, Sanja Stanojevic & Tim Cole), together with Jinping Zheng (APSR), Mary Ip (APSR), Paul Enright (ATS) & John Hankinson (ATS).

Software for evaluating spirometric data now available

Software is now available for evaluating spirometric data using the "All Age" (3-80 years) equations published by Stanojevic 2008-2009. Please note that the equations used are NOT those derived from the present Global Lungs Initiative.

The software is available for download. Please note that it is designed for the Windows operating system, that it is distributed 'as is', and that despite careful testing we cannot guarantee that it will always work flawlessly. If you spot errors, please be so kind to notify us.
Nov. 2, 2011: There was an error in the calculation of FEV0.75 for a 4 year old boy. This was corrected and a new version has been uploaded.

ANNOTATED EXAMPLES OF WORKING WITH GAMLSS (18 Jan. 2012)

In response to numerous enquiries and requests for assistance, we have produced a document to help guide those who may wish to use a similar statistical approach when analysing their own data. Many people are mystified how to use GAMLSS, the statistical package that we applied to derive prediction equations for spirometry. Even some statisticians have expressed difficulty in coming to grips with the software. This is not surprising, as the learning curve is rather steep and there are certain instances in which one has to make a choice between many possibilities, the scope of which is not always immediately clear.

The analytical team wishes to facilitate the use of GAMLSS for analysing respiratory data, so that any researcher can familiarise him/herself with this technique. To that end we have produced the document “GAMLSS in action”.

Use of GAMLSS is not for the uninitiated. Therefore we suggest that you provide your statistician with a copy of the document in case GAMLSS appears to be an appropriate statistical technique for analysing your data. In order to use the examples, one needs access to a data file. This data file and the pdf are available from http://www.spirxpert.com/download/GAMLSS-in-action.zip.

Any feedback is most welcome

MINUTES MEETING AND PRESENTATIONS BARCELONA 20 SEPT. 2010

Now available: minutes of the Barcelona meeting 20 September 2010 and the presentations.

TASK FORCE PROGRESS REPORT 12 SEPTEMBER 2010

An update on progress made until September 2010 is now available.

TASK FORCE PROGRESS REPORT 14 MARCH 2011

 An update on progress made until March 2011 is now available.

 Dissemination of results and update on progress
An editorial group was formed (J Stocks, PH Quanjer, X Baur, S Stanojevic, G Hall) to publish appropriate material on the Global Lungs website and disseminate a newsletter.  If you do not want to receive newsletters, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by e-mail.

Steering Committee
The Steering Committee was extended with two representatives from the Asian Pacific Respiratory Society and now comprises the following members: Janet Stocks (ERS), Xaver Baur (ERS), Graham Hall (ANZSRS), Bruce Culver (ATS), Jinping Zheng (APSR), Mary Ip (APSR), Sanja Stanojevic, Tim Cole, Paul Enright, John Hankinson, Philip Quanjer.

Publication strategy
As over 70 groups now share data with the Global Lungs Initiative, the following publication strategy, in line with requirements adopted by leading journals, was adopted.
The writing committee for each manuscript will be named authors, and will include at least 2 relevant members of the steering committee, those actively engaged in the analytical process and any individual who makes a substantive intellectual contribution to that specific manuscript. The manuscript will be submitted on behalf of the collaborative research group, which will be comprised of persons, groups or organisations that contributed substantive original individual data sets to the manuscript in question. The nominated representative from each group/organisation will be contacted prior to substantive data analysis commencing, and will be sent an outline of the proposed manuscript in which data are to be used and a brief form to complete reaffirming permission to use data for that manuscript (see permission request on website)

Implementing forthcoming regression equations
An explanation with worked examples is available on how software engineers will be able to incorporate forthcoming regression equations into software. NEW: the file, which is available for download, has been updated to reflect the model of regression equations that will be eventually published.

Source code of software
Source code is available which anyone, including manufacturers, can use as a template, to easily implement forthcoming equations. It is based on published equations (Am J Respir Crit Care Med 2009; 180: 547-552). The source code is available upon This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; a fully working program (Windows platform) can be downloaded from this address. July 20, 2010: new software which includes FEF25-75% and FEV0.75, and easy interpretation via pictograms.

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