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Carriers CF
- Question
- I have CF and my daughters are carriers. Now I have read that in America injections are being given to carriers so that they can’t become sick and they can’t give the disease to other people. Now this seems a major breakthrough and would certainly prevent lots of CF. It seems however unlikely. How is that?
- Answer
- Dear questioner,
First and foremost we need to point out that CF carriers do not get sick; they do not develop disease. CF is an autosomal recessive disorder, which means that only if you have an error in each of your two CFTR genes you have the disease CF. Apart from a gene with a mutation, carriers also have a healthy CFTR gene and will thus never become sick.
Unfortunately there is no technique to give injections to carriers so that they cannot transmit the abnormal gene to their children. Only if both partners are carriers there is the problem of the 1 in 4 chance that their child will have CF. So if both partners are carriers there are different possibilities to prevent that they would have a child with CF. You can read more about this topic under the headings ‘Prenatal diagnosis’ and pre-implantation diagnosis
K. De Boeck
- 07.04.2009
