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null New study reinforces importance of implementing newborn screening for cystic fibrosis in Quebec

The findings add to the increasingly overwhelming evidence in favour of newborn screening as a way to improve the quality of life for patients

May 4, 2016

A new study led by a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and Cystic Fibrosis Canada reinforces the benefits of newborn screening for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. Despite the fact that newborn screening has been implemented across North America and in several European countries as a way to improve overall survival rate and health outcomes of people living with CF, it is still not available in Quebec. The findings, recently published online in the Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, add to the increasingly overwhelming evidence in favour of newborn screening as a way to improve the quality of life for patients living with this chronic disease that is still incurable.

"Our study shows that newborn screening is effective and should be seen as an opportunity to do early preventive intervention,'' says the study's senior author, Dr. Larry Lands, director of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine and CF clinic at the Montreal Children's Hospital of the MUHC (MCH-MUHC) and a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McGill University. "Children with CF who are diagnosed through newborn screening are healthier and will benefit more from new treatments.'' Read more