How does a person get cystic fibrosis?
CF is a genetic disease, that is, a disease children are born with that is inherited from their parents. One person in every 30 in the United States has one CF gene. Each parent passes down a CF gene they inherited from their own parents. You need two CF genes to actually have the disease. Because each parent usually has only one CF gene, they don’t have CF themselves, and usually don’t know they carry the gene. CF is not contagious, and it is not caused by anything the parents did or didn’t do during conception or pregnancy. How is CF diagnosed? • Medical history: Doctors ask about problems with digestion, such as poor growth, abdominal pain and loose, oily bowel movements. They also ask about productive cough, wheezing, frequent lung or sinus infections, or difficulty breathing. • Physical exam: Doctors look for signs of CF, including poor growth or weight gain, and noisy lungs. • Laboratory tests: The sweat test, which looks for excessive salt in the sweat, is the standard test for
