A RESEARCH group in Dublin has discovered why women with cystic fibrosis are usually more ill than men with the condition.
Teams at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and at Beaumont Hospital have, for the first time, shown that the female hormone oestrogen can promote infections that cause more severe symptoms for women.
Details of the research were published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Senior authors on the paper, Prof Gerry McElvaney, the college’s professor of medicine, and his colleague Dr Catherine Greene set up the research group.
Prof McElvaney’s research focus was inflammation in the lungs of CF sufferers, but oestrogen emerged as an important contributor to this, he said.
The study found the hormone promotes the presence of a bacteria in the lungs called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It coats itself in a slimy layer that resists antibiotic treatment and can trigger severe inflammation to produce illness, he said. Oestrogen encourages the bacterium to mutate and become more infective.
Ireland has the highest incidence of cystic fibrosis in the world.
