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Grant helps researchers, GPs and participants breathe easy

24 August 2005

Monash researchers are part of a group that has been awarded almost $500,000 to study the use of spirometry -- the measurement of air entering the lungs -- in managing chronic respiratory diseases.

Professor Michael Abramson (pictured), Associate Professor Frank Thien and Dr Rosalie Aroni, from Monash; Dr Nabil Sulaiman from the University of Melbourne, and Ms Nory Side from mobile spirometry service Pulmetrics, received $487,427 in the federal government's Department of Health and Ageing Primary Health Care Research Evaluation and Development grants.

Their three-year study will investigate why spirometry is rarely used in GP clinics and how the technique could help better manage chronic respiratory diseases.

Spirometry is regularly used by respiratory specialists to measure the function of lungs during breathing, but is rarely used in general practice.

The technique, which uses a hot wire and turbine or another form of flow transducer device that people blow into, can be used to test whether a person has asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Professor Abramson said people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were often misdiagnosed, or not diagnosed at all.

"With treatment, symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma can be controlled, but if these illnesses are misdiagnosed, correct treatment can not be administered and people suffer needlessly," he said.

The study is intended to change the culture of diagnosing and treating respiratory illnesses in general practice and primary health care clinics across Australia.