Screening for Cystic Fibrosis

Abstract

Cystic fibrosis is a chronic disease of children and increasingly of adults; one third of the more than 15,000 patients listed in the registry of the North American National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation are older than 21 years. Respiratory complications account for much of the morbidity and more than 95 percent of the mortality from cystic fibrosis, although exocrine-gland dysfunction in many other organ systems affects all patients to a greater or lesser degree. Each year nearly 40 percent of those with cystic fibrosis are hospitalized at least once for a week or more. These episodes and the cost of outpatient . . .