If you are looking at an either/or differential, I suppose- numbers that don't change can indicate a more obstructive disease process. However, with Emily, her asthma isn't a stand-alone dx, it's the inflammation component of her CF. We do know that her numbers rose about 15% once her nebs and vest were how her dr wanted them (she was in the low 90's at dx and now is well over 100% upon adding albuterol, pulmacort and pulmozyme. It was adding pulmozyme that made the BIGGEST difference- her fev1 went up almost 10% after adding this.) If his dr feels his pft's are where they are now due to CF, I would think he'd take the next logical step and put him on some CF-specific nebs and airway clearance and see if that helps him. Due to CF's progressive nature, to see #'s that low and just leave them that way w/o the treatment that is the standard of care in CF worries me (only mentioning this after seeing your post elsewhere that this dr is not addressing his respiratory health at all.)
Now on the other hand in the asthma vs. cf scenario- My son has terrible pft's- much worse than Emily's- and we are still trying to figure out if they are due to 'just' asthma or if he has CF as well. (He goes for NPD testing in 2 weeks.) If Shawn has CF with the pft's he has now, it is really concerning, because it would indicate that at age 13 he already has some lung disease. (fev1 74% before albuterol, 77% after; FEF25-75 54% before albuterol and 71% after.) Even if it's 'just' asthma, it indicates we really need to work hard at getting it under better control to try to improve his numbers, but at least asthma is a more static condition. CF, of course, is not. So Shawn had dramatic change in small airways (suggestive of asthma) but very little change in fev1 (so that is a little harder to gauge.)
