Definition of "cystic fibrosis" []

• A hereditary disease of the exocrine glands, usually developing during early childhood and affecting mainly the pancreas, respiratory system, and sweat glands. It is characterized by the production of abnormally viscous mucus by the affected glands, usually resulting in chronic respiratory infections and impaired pancreatic function. Also called mucoviscidosis. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "*Charles P. Tolchin, avatar of optimism, died from complications of his cystic fibrosis on Aug. 7, 2003."
• "We're here because of the young man I met in Youngsville, North Carolina who almost lost his home because he has three children with cystic fibrosis and couldn't pay their medical bills; who still doesn't have health insurance for himself or his wife and lives in fear that a single illness could cost them everything."
• "There, spilling out of the fax machine Lap-Chee and I had set up in the Yale dormitory where we were both attending a meeting, was the data from that day’s work in the lab—showing unequivocally that a deletion of just three letters of the DNA code CTT, to be exact in the protein-coding part of a previously unknown gene was the cause of cystic fibrosis in the majority of patients."