Study finds pus, not mucus, clogs lungs in cystic fibrosis

Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, North Carolina, collected sputum from 12 people with cystic fibrosis (CF) and 11 individuals without the disease. They analyzed the samples and discovered, surprisingly, that the individuals with CF had significantly less (70% and 93%) of two proteins that form mucus. This means that the individuals with CF had much less airway mucus. This contradicts the traditional belief that individuals with CF have excessive amounts of abnormally thick mucus in their lungs. The researchers found instead that the substance clogging the lungs in individuals with CF is pus and infection.