Criteria to select flow–volume curves for visual inspection a
All curves with observed FEV1 values larger than 6 L and values lower than 0.5 L
All curves with observed FVC values larger than 8 L and values lower than 0.5 L
All curves with observed PEF values lower than 100 L/min and values higher than 800 L/min
All curves for twins with only one observed blow
All curves for twins with two or three observed blows and a difference larger than 25% between largest and second largest value
All curves with a calculated maxFEV1/maxFVC ratio larger than 0.98
All curves with a calculated maxFEV1/maxFVC ratio lower than 0.40
Further selection criteria
If no curves were available for inspection and one of the criteria for visual inspection was fulfilled, the values were converted to missing.
FEV1, FVC, and PEF were evaluated separately for each twin so that if, for example, PEF values were approved after evaluation of the flow-volume curves, FEV1 and FVC could be converted to missing values as a result of the evaluation and vice versa.
For calculations of correlations and variance components, the max value of the observed data for each twin was chosen, providing us with maxFEV1, maxFVC, and maxPEF.
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