According to new research, the 5-year survival rate for Canadians with cystic fibrosis who have received a lung transplant is 67% and half of those who have had transplants live beyond 10 years.
Dr. Stephenson said that accurately predicting life expectancy after a transplant would allow CF caregivers to better quantify the risks associated with transplant so patients are fully informed when making decisions around transplantation.
This is the second piece of good news for cystic fibrosis patients that Dr. Stephenson has published recently. In November, a paper she published in the European Respiratory Journal showed that Canadians with cystic fibrosis are living almost 20 years longer than they did two decades ago.
The median survival age was 49.7 years in 2012, up from 31.9 years in 1990. Since the paper was written, Dr. Stephenson has updated the median survival age to include Cystic Fibrosis Canada data from 2013 and reported the median age of survival has in fact reached 50.9 years. Dr. Stephenson said there are few therapies that can impact survival as dramatically as lung transplantation, which has likely contributed to the increasing survival in Canadians with CF.
