Description:

This review article is focused on genetic and clinical characteristics of cystic fibrosis (CF), a hereditary disorder that causes electrolyte and fluid transport imbalances. Cystic fibrosis has been considered primarily a disease of European population. This article provides statistics from the latest studies and explores recent data from WHO to demonstrate an important concept - cystic fibrosis affects all races and ethnic groups, but due to the lack of awareness, it is often unrecognized. This review covers in-depth classification of types of CF and discusses adult, neonatal and prenatal screening, including newest genetic screening. A new concept of evolutionary advantage of some hereditary conditions has been recently introduced in medical sciences. Using the data from latest anthropologic and clinical studies, we provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that gene for cystic fibrosis developed under evolutionary pressure and confers beneficial effect to the gene carriers.