Technology Services
Pulmonary Physiology Laboratories
The Pulmonary Physiology Laboratory at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis is a full-service laboratory that provides measurement of:
- Lung volumes, including body plethysmography, a way to measure the total amount of air the lungs can hold
- How well oxygen passes from the air sacs of the lungs into the blood, using a diffusion capacity test
- Flow rates, which tell physicians how much air patients can take into their lungs with a deep breath and how quickly they can expel air from their lungs
- Cardiopulmonary stress, with a test that can determine whether shortness of breath is caused by heart or lung problems or whether it is secondary to muscle disease or the loss of muscle tone and endurance
- How much their airways narrow after inhaling certain substances, with bronchial provocation tests. These tests, called exercise provocation and methacholine inhalation challenge, help determine if patients have asthma.
- Resting energy expenditure, or the amount of calories the body needs for a 24-hour period during a non-active period
- The amount of oxygen bound to hemoglobin – the part of the red blood cells that carry oxygen from the lungs to the tissue – during rest and exercise, also known as saturation studies
- Resting and exercise arterial blood gases, with tests that determine how well the lungs are working by evaluating their ability to move oxygen into the lungs and remove carbon dioxide from the blood
Baptist Memphis’ Pulmonary Laboratory staff is made up of respiratory care practitioners credentialed in pulmonary technology. Test interpretations are performed by pulmonologists with more than 25 years of laboratory experience.
Pulmonary Physiology Laboratory staff effectively evaluates symptoms of shortness of breath at rest or with exercise, chest pain, pain while inhaling or exhaling, wheezing and cough. They also perform presurgical screenings for patients with pulmonary symptoms or a history of smoking.