Single breath counting is an effective screening tool for forced vital capacity in ALS

Figures & data

Table 1 Demographic and clinical characteristics of the full ALS patient cohort and the minimal speech cohort.^a

	Full cohort	Minimal speech cohort	p Value full vs. minimal
Total, N	30	25	–
Female, N (%)	9 (30%)	6 (24%)	0.763
Age, median years [IQR]	58.0 [49.25–73.25]	58.0 [50.00–71.00]	0.892
Height, median inches [IQR]	68.0 [62.25–70.75]	68.0 [63.00–71.00]	0.865
ALSFRS-R, median total [IQR]	34.5 [29.75–39.75]	35.0 [32.00–40.00]	0.912
FVCL, median liters [IQR]	2.87 [2.06–3.39]	2.96 [2.14–3.52]	0.729
FVCpred, median % predicted [IQR]	71.0 [55.12–85.75]	72.50 [55.50–86.00]	0.761
FVC impaired, <50% FVCpred (%)	5 (16.7%)	4 (16%)	1.000
SBCpp, median [IQR]	35.0 [22.75–55.50]	40.0 [29.50–58.50]	0.318
SBCep, median [IQR]	32.0 [24.62–50.50]	36.5 [26.50–54.00]	0.365

^a Defined as ALSFRS-R question 1 = 3 or 4.

Figure 1 (A) Association between single breath counting and FVC_L for patient paced and externally paced study procedures.(B) ROC curves for predicting FVC_pred <50% adjusting for age, sex, and height. Top-row: full cohort (N = 30); Bottom-row: minimal speech cohort (N = 25).

Data availability statement

Anonymized data is available upon request from any qualified investigator for the purposes of replicating procedures and results.