If there was a treatment for cystic fibrosis?

Question

If there was a treatment that was 100% effective in alleviating the symptoms of CF so that individuals that had CF could be healthy, live long and reproduce, in terms of population health, what would be the down side of having such a treatment available?

Answer 1

Not really... The only solution is lung transplant. Which is extremely dangerous. I'm not sure what the average mortality rate for transplant is... but it's quite high. It varies from hospital to hospital, but is quite high nonetheless.

So far that is the only 100% effective solution. And that doesn't include the other "non-lung" problems associated with CF. Infertility obviously won't be solved by this (97% of men with CF are infertile [lack a vas deferens], and many women have missed menstrual cycles secondary to nutrition problems). Neither will gastrointestinal and/or endocrine problems associated with CF.

Good luck.

UPDATE:

The following is quoted from Wikipedia (I'm not sure what the cited sources are):

Prognosis

1 year survival rate: 70% for living-donor grafts, 77% for deceased-donor grafts
5 year survival rate: 45% overall
1 year survival rate for heart-lung transplants: 60%[13]

Transplanted lungs typically last 3-5 years before showing signs of failure.