Cystic fibrosis mortality rates: Females

[onyaga]

Hello!
I don't know a lot about cystic fibrosis but could someone please inform me on why females with CF have generally lower mortality rates than males with CF?

 

[jricci]

CF females have a shortened life expectancy relative to men.

Recent research suggest that estrogen plays a role:

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/09/15/study-reveals-new-clues-to-cystic-fibrosis-gender-gap/

 

[ethan508]

I've often wondered if it a simple matter of size. Males are generally just bigger than women. With that size comes slightly larger lungs, slightly larger airways, slightly more body mass to consume when going through illness/weight loss. If I was a researcher I would want to do a data search and see if I could find some correlation between the size of a patient (both height and weight) and overall survival. If you looked at two CF men with the same BMI (say 6' tall, 180 lbs compared to one 5'6" 150 lbs) would the research show longer survival for one than the other? Granted this gets complicated because part of the reason someone might be small is because of more severe CF in during youth.