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Calcium And Cystic Fibrosis, Godfried M. Roomans

Scanning Electron Microscopy

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a generally lethal, congenital, genetic disease of unknown etiology. It is likely that a defective regulation of ion and water transport in exocrine glands and possibly also in other epithelial cells has a central role in the pathogenesis of this disease. Calcium has been implicated in the basic defect underlying CF because of findings of abnormally high calcium levels in some secreted fluids and some cells of CF patients.

Using X-ray microanalysis, we have demonstrated elevated calcium concentrations in cultured fibroblasts and in goblet cells of the bronchial epithelium of CF patients. A factor produced by …