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The Common Genetic Disorders : Cystic Fibrosis

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Cystic fibrosis is one of the most common genetic disorders. Patients with cystic fibrosis have many serious medical conditions and the majority only live to their mid-thirties. I will be looking at many different aspects of the disease such as, phenotypes, genotypes, and inheritance patterns. Also how the disease is diagnosed, treated, and the prognosis of the disease.
According to the American Lung Association, “Cystic fibrosis is the second most life shortening, inherited disorder occurring in childhood in the United States.” The first is sickle cell anemia. The following data was collected by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. It is estimated that 30,000 Americans, 3,000 Canadians and 20,000 Europeans have cystic fibrosis. Also that 1 in every 20 Americans are carriers for this defective gene and are unaffected. This means you must receive the defective gene from both of your parents to have cystic fibrosis. Roughly 1 in every 3,700 children that are born here in the United States have this genetic disorder. It occurs equally in both males and females and it is most commonly seen in Caucasians who are of a Northern European descent and least commonly seen in Asian Americans. Up till the 1950’s most individuals with this disease did not live to go to elementary school, but today the average life span of cystic fibrosis patients is around thirty-nine years.
The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene is where mutations occur for this disease. The cystic

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