Race Adjustment in Pulmonary Function Tests

In our first issue, we discussed the current reevaluation of race adjustments to glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Such racial adjustments are not unique to nephrology and today we are including references discussing pulmonary function tests. The original article appears in Chest but there is a nice summary in Medscape. The authors of the Chest article describe the origins of the current adjustment and point out the observed differences between white and black patients was not fully researched and was, instead, attributed to innate racial differences. The authors suggest an alternative but also warn that an abrupt change could also have detrimental effects on patients. Links to the Medscape summary and the Chest article are included below.