Plain-language · Issue 1 · 2026-09-24
Medication Adherence in Cystic Fibrosis: Three Methods Tell Three Different Stories
Editorially reviewed research summaries, context, and limitations.
Lieke Roeke, Liesbeth I van de Ven, Steffie E M Vonk, et al.
Summary: A Dutch study of 43 people with CF — both children and adults — looked at how well patients were taking their medicines using three different approaches: checking pharmacy records to see how often prescriptions were filled, asking patients directly how consistently they took their medicines, and having pharmacists sit down with patients for detailed structured reviews. The results were striking in two ways. First, patients were much more likely to take their CFTR modulator medicines consistently (72–92% adherence) than they were to take supportive treatments like vitamins, digestive enzymes, and inhaled medicines (56–78%). Second, the structured pharmacist reviews found problems that the other two methods had missed — catching four patients who were not taking medicines as prescribed but had not been identified by pharmacy records or questionnaires, and uncovering 51 medication-related problems across almost all 43 participants. All of those identified problems led to accepted changes in care.
Why it matters: CF requires patients to manage a complex regimen of medicines. In the era of highly effective CFTR modulators, the treatments that directly and dramatically improve how CF feels may understandably feel more important to patients than vitamins or enzymes, even though those supportive treatments remain essential for nutrition, digestion, and lung health. The fact that pharmacy records and patient questionnaires together still missed problems that a pharmacist's detailed review found suggests that care teams may need more than routine data to get a complete picture of how well patients are managing their full treatment plan.
What to keep in mind: This study involved only 43 patients at a single specialist clinic in the Netherlands. Patients who attend a dedicated CF center and agree to participate in a study are likely to be more engaged with their care than average, which means the adherence rates reported here may be higher than what would be found across the broader CF population. The study looked at one point in time, so it cannot show whether the pharmacist reviews actually improved patients' health over time — that would require a longer follow-up study comparing patients who received reviews with those who did not. The finding that every single problem identified by pharmacists was accepted and acted upon by treating doctors is encouraging, but a study this small carried out at one center cannot confirm this would happen everywhere.
Relevance: Cystic Fibrosis
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42667119/
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