How to Diagnose Lung Disease?

Healthy lungs are crucial to human life and any lung disease should be diagnosed early on before permanent damage occurs. There are many lung function tests as well as other tests which can help to diagnose lung diseases.

Medical and Family History

The doctor will take a detailed history of your symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath either at rest or during exertion, chest pain, coughing up of sputum or blood, and wheezing. Inform your doctor about previous exposure to chemicals, use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, home and work environments, your family history of asthma and allergies, and other medical conditions such as sinus infections or asthma.

Physical Exam

During the physical exam, the doctor will note your general appearance, vital signs (pulse rate, breath rate, blood pressure) and listen to your breathing to determine whether the airflow is normal or obstructed and whether the lungs contain fluid. Normal physical exam on the day of examination does not rule out lung disease.

Diagnostic Tests

Your doctor may order a series of diagnostic tests to determine the cause of your symptoms. Some of the tests which may be done are spirometry test or lung function test  which determines how fast air goes in and out of the lungs, chest x-rays, biopsy (bronchoscopy or a needle biopsy), blood tests, arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis, ultrasound, various scans (computed tomography scan, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear lung scanning), bronchoscopy and culture samples.

The doctor will not recommend all the tests at one go. Tests are done based on your signs and symptoms and a combination of them may be needed to get a clear picture of what's causing your symptoms and the severity of the disease. At times the doctor may recommend more tests as it's better to be safe than sorry.

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