Who is affected by cystic fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis is one of the most common genetic (caused by a defective gene) diseases in white children in the United States.

• 1 in every 3,500 white infants has cystic fibrosis.¹
• Cystic fibrosis occurs in equal numbers of boys and girls.

Cystic fibrosis is much less common in children of most other races. It is extremely rare in native Asian and African people (fewer than 1 in 50,000), but more common in the American populations of these ethnic groups.

Citations

1. Boat TF (2004). Cystic fibrosis. In RE Behrman et al., eds., Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, 17th ed., pp. 1437–1450. Philadelphia: Saunders.