Background: Because more patients reach adulthood, new questions as "what about having a child and/or paternity responsibility?" arose.
Method: We performed a retrospective investigation based on the French CF registry. The context of the paternity and the health status of fathers were recorded. A comparison with clinical status of non-father patients and a compilation of follow-up data to evaluate its impact were done.
Results: Forty-eight men had 69 children. One fourth was said to be natural conceptions, 69% needed assisted reproduction techniques. No child had CF. Clinical status of men was satisfactory: mean BMI was 20.9 kg/m(2) and mean FEV(1) and FVC were 50.5% and 69.2% of predicted, respectively. When matched to CF non-fathers, few significant differences appeared. More non-fathers were F508del/F508del (p=0.03). Fathers' sputum cultures were positive for non-Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain (p=0.05), including Staphylococcus aureus (p=0.01). Mean age at diagnosis was higher, and based on minor evidence of sterility as first symptom leading to the diagnosis of CF (p=0.01) or aspergillosis (p=0.03). The 3-year follow-up showed no degradation of the clinical status.
Conclusion: Men having paternity responsibility over children did not differ from the CF male population and neither did it seem to have an impact on the disease course.