• 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

Life expectancy

It is a sad fact that, at the moment, having CF does usually reduce life expectancy. This is why we try hard to make sure everyone with CF gets the treatments they need to stay as healthy as possible. This is what the CF Trust has to say on life expectancy:

"It is misleading to suggest that there is an 'average life expectancy' that can be applied to everyone with cystic fibrosis. Life expectancy is likely to be different for people of different ages; and this is before taking into account the fact that CF can also affect people differently. The median predicted survival for someone with CF currently stands at 47 years old. This means that according to the most recent report from the UK Cystic Fibrosis Registry, currently half of those with cystic fibrosis will live to over 47 years old, although a baby born today can be expected to live longer."

This gives a measure of the life expectancy for everyone with CF who is alive today - children and adults. It cannot be applied to individuals, all of whom are different. We hope and believe that with the right treatments given at the right time, the majority of children with CF today will beat these predicted survival figures.