If you follow children with cystic fibrosis (CF), you have likely become familiar with clinical practice guidelines for infants under 2 years of age and over 6 years of age. Did you realize no guidelines have existed for pediatric CF patients between 2 and 5 years of age? At least not until now, when Lahiri et al. (10.1542/peds.2015-1784) share the results of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation convening a multidisciplinary group of experts to review the evidence and in turn provide consensus-based recommendations for the care of preschool children in the 2 to 5 age group.
Their recommendations involve such areas as when to do routine surveillance for pulmonary disease, as well as what nutritional and gastrointestinal care is warranted as part of the therapeutic care plan for this important subgroup of CF patients. While these recommendations do not represent AAP policy, they do represent opinions of those who participated in this national conference which are derived from comprehensive evidence-based CF studies published to date combined with the expertise of the attendees at this conference. This is a “special article” to keep handy if you do care for a preschool CF patient for their primary or specialty care.
