Pulmonary outcome prediction for cystic fibrosis patients.

摘要

The course of lung disease in cystic fibrosis (CF) is largely characterized by recurrent episodes of pulmonary exacerbations, the number and severity of which influence the final outcome by speeding up the overall deterioration in this disease. The day-to-day success or failure of keeping the disease under control determines for most patients their ultimate fate. Today, a child bom with CF can expect to live nearly four decades; however, the duration and quality of that life have been shown to depend heavily on the rate of decline of pulmonary function closely associated with increased morbidity. Even though clinical or phenotypic expression varies largely between individuals and over time, the ability to predict lung function decline as an outcome, using clinical scores or other measures, is often thought to be an important target for improvement of patient management.