Cystic fibrosis

1. Cystic fibrosis By charly, jess and annemarie (who likes to walk into doors)

2. What is cystic fibrosis? -Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is one of the UK's most common life-threatening inherited diseases. -Cystic Fibrosis affects over 8,500 people in the UK. -Over two million people in the UK carry the faulty gene that causes Cystic Fibrosis - around 1 in 25 of the population. -If two carriers have a child, the baby has a 1 in 4 chance of having Cystic Fibrosis. -Cystic Fibrosis affects the internal organs, especially the lungs and digestive system, by clogging them with thick sticky mucus. This makes it hard to breathe and digest food. -Each week, five babies are born with Cystic Fibrosis. -Each week, two young lives are lost to Cystic Fibrosis. -Around half of the CF population can expect to live over 38 years, although improvements in treatments mean a baby born today could expect to live even longer.

3. Treatment for cystic fibrosis? Physiotherapy- Physiotherapy is a way of clearing the mucus from the lungs. Parents are taught how to do this for their child by the physiotherapist in the CF clinic. Chest physiotherapy is important because it helps to prevent the thick, sticky lung secretions from blocking the air tubes. This helps to reduce infection and prevent lung damage. Exercise - Physical activity is an important part of the treatment process. Exercise is particularly important for people with CF as it prevents deterioration of the lungs and improves physical bulk and strength. Children with CF should be encouraged to take part in as much physical activity as possible. Medication- Cystic Fibrosis affects the lungs and the digestive tract - these areas are likely to require medication. Infections can be cleared or controlled by a variety of drugs. Medication can be administered in various ways: inhaled into the lungs using nebulisers, taken orally or taken intravenously (injected). Nutrition- A suitable diet is also very important for people with Cystic Fibrosis. A good body weight can help people to fight chest infections and help the body have reserves should they start losing weight when they are ill.

4. What is the life expectancy of a person who has cystic fibrosis? - In addition, some adults with cystic fibrosis have only recently begun to use new treatments, while an infant diagnosed at birth will have the advantages of starting specialized treatments that were not available even a decade ago - There is no way to accurately predict how long a person with cystic fibrosis will live, as many different factors affect a person’s health. Severity of disease and time of diagnosis are two such factors. Many people have a mild case of CF, while others can have moderate or severe cases.

5. Possibilities for gene therapy? Now a team of researchers from the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, Australia, claim they have found a way of prolonging the effect of the treatment. - As well as the therapy, they gave a dose of a detergent-like substance found naturally in the healthy lung. - They believe this helps "condition" the surface of the lung and hold off the defence mechanism. -So far, they have only tested their theory in the nasal passages of mice - which react in a similar way to the surfaces of the lungs. -In their experiments, cells lining these airways not only responded to the gene therapy, but maintained that response - so far for 110 days. -As nasal cells are generally replaced once every three months, this means it is possible that the change is appearing in newly-created cells as well as existing ones.