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‘Tremendous hope’: New cystic fibrosis treatment changing lives
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New hope: A runner makes his way during the last kilometres of the 14th edition of the Glacier 3000 run above Les Diablerets on Aug. 6. Over 70,000 people worldwide are estimated to suffer from cystic fibrosis, which causes difficulty breathing and long-term complications, but a triple-pill treatment has had a major impact since the United States first approved it in 2019. (AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)
D
avid Fiant says his cystic fibrosis and the arduous therapy it required was so bad he "could no longer tell if I was living to heal myself or healing myself to live".
While waiting for a lung transplant, he was on oxygen therapy and had a six-hour daily care regime, as well as three to four weeks of antibiotic infusions a year.
Then he became one of the first people in France to take a new triple-drug treatment that has been hailed as a game-changer for people with the rare, life-threatening disorder.
"I took my first dose of the medicine one morning. By 3 p.m. I was feeling [the] first effects," said Fiant.
For the first time in years he was able to shower by himself, climb 15 steps at once and above all, "accompany my daughter to buy comic books", the 40-year-old said.
When Fiant's doctor examined him after he started the treatment, he could hear air circulating in his lungs. That had never happened before, he said.
Fiant's care regime has since been drastically cut back, and he has become the president of the French nonprofit, Vaincre la Mucoviscidose (Defeat Cystic Fibrosis).
