Cystic fibrosis: a system for assessing and predicting progression.

Abstract
This study presents a radiography-based database scoring changes over time in a large population of patients with cystic fibrosis. The purpose of this database is to provide comparison for groups of patients undergoing experimental treatment to assess effect of the treatment. The data may also be used to compare individuals with their age-matched cohorts with cystic fibrosis.From 230 patients, 3038 chest radiographs were scored using the Brasfield system. The scores from radiographs from all the patients were individually plotted for age, and a single age-based severity curve was created. The age-based severity curve was compared with similar curves derived from pulmonary function studies of a subset of the same patient population.We found high inter- and intraobserver reliability. The difference between the observers averaged 1.3 Brasfield points, the scale of which ranges up to 25 points. The age-based severity curve was presented as mean Brasfield scores versus age (birth to > 30 years) plotted with 95...

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: