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Published on: April 11, 2018
Risk of asthma in heterozygous carriers for cystic fibrosis: A meta-analysis
Anne Orholm Nielsen1, Sadaf Qayum1, Pierre Nourdine Bouchelouche1
1Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Zealand University Hospital, Køge, Denmark.
Background:
Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) have a higher prevalence of asthma than the background population, however, it is unclear whether heterozygous CF carriers are susceptible to asthma. Given this, a meta-analysis is necessary to determine the veracity of the association of CF heterozygosity with asthma.
Methods:
We screened the medical literature from 1966 to 2015 and performed a meta-analysis to determine the risk of asthma in CF heterozygotes vs. non-carriers.
Results:
Aggregating data from 15 studies, the odds ratio for asthma in CF heterozygotes compared with non-carriers was significantly elevated at 1.61 (95% CI: 1.18-2.21). When analyzing the studies considered of high quality in which asthma was diagnosed by a physician, the patients were >18years, or study size was ≥500, the trend remained the same, that heterozygous carriers of CF had elevated risk for asthma.
Conclusions:
The results show that heterozygous carriers for CF have a higher risk of asthma than non-carriers.
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