• Patients and families

• Health professionals

• Contacts

• Links

Information for children, teenagers and families

• Home
• About CF
• The clinical team
• Out-patient care
• Nutrition
• Food diary
• Physiotherapy
• Exercise
• Psychological support
• Schools
• Benefits
• Hot weather
• Travelling and holidays
• Chest infections
• Cough swabs and sputum samples
• Bugs
• Cross infection
• Problems that might happen
• Medicines (including inhaled drugs)
• In-patient care
• Lung function
• Bronchoscopy
• Chest xrays and CT scans
• Bone density (DEXA) scans
• Annual review
• Puberty
• Fertility
• Life expectancy
• Genetic counselling
• What is a genotype?
• Research
• Moving to adult care
• Annual survey
• Lung function at home

Annual review

What happens at the review?

The annual review is an opportunity to look back over the previous 12 months, and look for any patterns that might indicate that a new form of treatment is needed, or whether a different way of doing the same treatment might be helpful. The review is always done in Oxford and includes time with the physiotherapy team, dieticians, CF nurses, the CF team psychologist and with one of the doctors - nearly always Dr Hull or Dr Ives. The review also includes having a blood test, and a chest xray and an ultrasound of the liver (see the page on 'Problems that might happen' for more information on CF liver disease). The blood tests check that the kidneys and liver are working normally, and that there is no anaemia; we also check the blood sugar level, do a test to look for ABPA (see 'Problems that might happen') and send samples off to another lab to get the vitamin levels measured. After the annual review, our pharmacist Rhoda Welsh, will phone to ask about the medications your child is on (there isn't enough time during the annual review day for Rhoda to see everyone).

How is the review organised?

You will be sent an appointment for your annual review. If the date is not convenient, please contact the CF nurses at Oxford (Cathy or Katherine) as soon as possible after you get the appointment letter to arrange a different date. There is a lot to fit in on annual review days, so it is really appreciated when families arrive in good time - we know this often means getting up very early on the day of the review, especially for families who are travelling significant distances and then battling with traffic coming in to Oxford and with the difficult parking problems at the Children's Hospital.

Results from the annual review

About 1 week after the review we have a meeting where we discuss all the findings of the review and write a report. The report is written in quite technical language, so it is sent to your local consultant rather than to the families directly, so that it can be discussed at the next routine visit. If there are any specific changes that need to be implemented immediately, we will write to families to get these changes started.

The blood test for the vitamin levels often takes about 2 months to get the result - we will write to families separately about this test result.