Demographics of the UK cystic fibrosis population: implications for neonatal screening

The objective was to determine the composition of the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Population attending specialist UK CF centres in terms of age, gender, age at diagnosis, genotype and ethnicity. With the planned introduction of the national CF screening programme in the UK, cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) mutations were compared between different ethnic groups enabling a UK-specific frequency of mutations to be defined. Data were analysed from the patient biographies held in the UK CF Database (see www.cystic-fibrosis.org.uk). The currently registered population of 5,274 CF patients is 96.3% Caucasian with a male preponderance that significantly increases with age. The majority of the 196 non-Caucasian CF patients are from the Indian Subcontinent (ISC), of which one in 84 UK CF patients are of Pakistani origin. The commonest CFTR mutation, deltaF508, is found in 74.1% of all CF chromosomes. In the Caucasian CF population, 57.5% are deltaF508 homozygotes but the UK ISC CF population with only 24.7%, has significantly fewer deltaF508 homozygotes patients (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.2-0.4). The distribution of Caucasian patients with deltaF508/deltaF508, deltaF508/Other and Other/Other does not fit the expected distribution with a Hardy-Weinberg model unless those patients without a detected mutation are excluded (P<0.001). The UK CF Database has shown the UK CF population to have distinct characteristics separate from the North American and European CF Registries. The ISC group contains many mutations not recognised by current genetic analysis, and one in four ISC patients have no CFTR mutations identified. The CFTR analysis proposed for the screening programme would detect 96% of patients registered in the database, but is unlikely to achieve the desired >80% detection rates in the ethnic minority groups. Screen-positive, non-Caucasian infants without an identifiable CFTR mutation should be referred for a sweat test and genetic counselling when serum trypsinogen concentrations remain elevated after birth.