Objective. As part of a study to determine population-based frequencies of CFTR mutations in an ethnically diverse, midwestern cystic fibrosis (CF) population, clinical histories were studied in 119 CF patients.
Methodology. We sought to examine the association between genotype as characterized by the ΔF508 and 11 other commonly occurring mutations and clinical parameters including age at diagnosis, clinical presentation, sweat chloride level, chest roentgenogram score, clinical scores, pulmonary function test results, percent weight for height, and presence of associated CF complications.
Results. Age at diagnosis of CF was significantly associated with homozygosity for ΔF508 (mean age at diagnosis ± SE: 1.7 ± 0.3 years for ΔF508/ΔF508 vs 3.9 ± 0.9 years for ΔF508/other and other/other; P = .03). No other age-adjusted clinical parameter was significantly associated with ΔF508 or any other genotype.
Conclusion. These data suggest that in this sample of CF patients, ΔF508 genotype is not predictive of disease severity. The lack of association between disease severity and genotype in this ethnically diverse sample may reflect the presence of more severe undetected mutations in our sample, or the effects of modifying genes at other, non-CF loci.
Influence of Ancestry on Sufficiency of Sweat Production in Sweat Chloride Testing for Cystic Fibrosis
