Cystic fibrosis is a common childhood disorder, yet few people know about it.

In Australia, one child in 2500 is born with it, and one person in 25 carries the recessive gene which causes it.

Eighty children with this disease will be born each year in Australia.

Cystic fibrosis (CF for short) is a genetic disorder. Because it is caused by a recessive gene it will develop only if a child receives two recessive genes, one from each parent.

If he has only one such gene, the disease does not develop. That person, however, is a carrier.

If one child in a family has the disease, then each subsequent child will have a risk of one in four of having the same disease.

The basic problem in cystic fibrosis is that there is a widespread disorder of mucus-secreting glands.

It particularly affects the lungs and the pancreas which lies high up on the back wall of the abdomen behind the stomach.

It has two main functions. One is to produce enzymes, and this is the part affected in cystic fibrosis, which pass along a small duct to the first part of the small bowel. These enzymes are necessary for the proper digestion of fat and protein.

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Firstly, cancer is not inherited. You cannot pass it on to your children, even when cancer develops during pregnancy. There are a few very rare types of childhood cancer which are an exception such as retinoblastoma, a rare cancer of the back of the eye. There are also some rare inherited conditions (such as von Recklinghausen’s disease, xeroderma pigmentosa—ë òàòå skin disease, and some other conditions associated with multiple benign bowel polyps) which are associated with an increased risk of cancer. However, no common type of cancer is inherited. Ask your practitioner about your particular case if you are worried about this.

Secondly, as far as we know, no type of cancer is infectious. No type of cancer can be passed on directly by any form of physical contact, however intimate. However, it is true that some types of infection are linked with some particular types of cancer. For example, many, but not all, patients with a rare cancer called Burkitts’ lymphoma have antibodies to one particular virus, indicating that they have been previously infected by that virus. Many, but by no means all, patients with cancer of the cervix have evidence of previous infection with a certain herpes virus. The cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma occurs in some patients with

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)— AIDS is caused by a virus. Each of these cancers also occur in patients who have no evidence of previous infection with the particular virus involved. There is not a direct cause and effect relationship—the great majority of people who are infected with these viruses do not get cancer. As with cigarette smoking, it seems that the virus is simply a factor which can operate with other unknown factors to produce cancer in a small proportion of those infected.

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