PFT

Pulmonary function test, a test designed to measure how well the lungs are working.

PFTs gauge how the lungs are doing their jobs -- of expanding and contracting (when a person inhales and exhales) and of exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide efficiently between the air (or other gases) within the lungs and the blood.</P> For example, one PFT calls for the patient to breathe into a machine called a spirometer.

It is a mechanical device that records the changes in lung size as air is inhaled and exhaled and the time it takes for the patient to do this task.