Cystic fibrosis in Australia, 2009: results from a data registry.

Objectives: To describe the demographics, clinical features and outcomes among people with cystic fibrosis (CF) in Australia and to estimate incidence of the disease.

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional analysis using data from the Australian Cystic Fibrosis Data Registry for 2009.

Main Outcome Measures: Numbers of diagnoses, pulmonary and anthropometric measurements, microbiological culture results, rates of hospitalisation and transplantation, and numbers of medical complications and deaths.

Respiratory infections and lung function in an Australian Aboriginal community.

Background And Objective: To investigate the association between serological evidence of past infections with common respiratory pathogens and lung function in members of an isolated community of Aborigines from tropical coastal north-western Australia.

Methods: FEV(1) and FVC were assessed by dry bellows spirometer. Serum IgG titres to 11 common respiratory pathogens were assayed.

Decline in lung function in the Busselton Health Study: the effects of asthma and cigarette smoking.

Asthma in adults may be associated with chronic airflow obstruction, possibly resulting from airway disease in early life and/or a greater rate of decline in lung function in adult life compared with those with asthma. Treatment and cigarette smoking may also influence the rate of decline of lung function. The aim of this analysis was to examine the level and rate of decline in lung function in relationship to asthma and cigarette smoking in adults.