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Anemia - Sickle Cell Blog
Related terms: Hemoglobin SS disease (Hb SS), Sickle Cell Anemia, Sickle Cell Disease, Hemoglobin SS disease, Hb SS
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Sickle Cell Blood Test Might Predict Severity of Disease
Posted 2 Mar 2012 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, March 2 – Researchers report they have developed a blood test that can predict which sickle cell patients are most likely to experience the most severe symptoms of the disease. When the blood illness is at its worst, patients can suffer intense pain, internal organ damage and shortened lives. While about 13 million people worldwide are thought to have the disease, which is caused by a genetic mutation, it's not well understood. "We still don't have effective enough therapies, and we don't have a good feel for how the disease manifests itself differently in different people," Sangeeta Bhatia, a professor of health sciences and technology and electrical engineering and computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, said in a news release from the institute. "When a patient has high cholesterol, you can monitor their risk for heart disease and response to ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
Efforts to Reduce Stroke in Kids With Sickle Cell Working: Study
Posted 2 Feb 2012 by Drugs.com
THURSDAY, Feb. 2 – Greater use of certain types of treatments for kids with sickle cell anemia may explain why black children's risk of ischemic stroke dropped significantly between 1999 and 2007, new research finds. The disparity in stroke-related deaths between black and white children also fell during that period. Prior to 1998, black children were 74 percent more likely to die of ischemic stroke than white children. The racial difference is attributed in part to higher rates of sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder that raises the risk of stroke, among black children, according to the study scheduled to be presented Thursday at the American Stroke Association meeting in New Orleans. Then, in 1998, a major clinical trial found that treatments such as chronic (regularly scheduled) blood transfusions could dramatically lower the risk of stroke among kids with sickle cell anemia who ... Read more
Related support groups: Ischemic Stroke, Anemia - Sickle Cell, Transient Ischemic Attack, Ischemic Stroke -- Prophylaxis, Intracranial Hemorrhage
Adult Sickle Cell Drug May Benefit Kids, Too
Posted 12 Dec 2011 by Drugs.com
SUNDAY, Dec. 11 – A drug called hydroxyurea that's approved for use in adults with severe sickle cell anemia can also help young children with the disease, new research suggests. Children with sickle cell anemia younger than 4 years old who took the medication had fewer emergency department visits for pain crises, hospital admissions, illnesses with fever and need for transfusions, the study found. "Hydroxyurea may be an option for all children with sickle cell anemia. If you're the parent of a child with sickle cell anemia, talk with your child's doctor about whether it might be right for your child," said study lead author Dr. Zora Rogers, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. "We don't see a difference in toxicity; we don't see a big difference in growth," said Rogers, who's also clinical director of the bone marrow failure and ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell, Hydroxyurea, Hydrea, Droxia, Mylocel
Sickle Cell Disease Tied to 'Silent Strokes' in Children
Posted 2 Dec 2011 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Dec. 2 – Children with sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder, who also have high blood pressure and/or anemia are at increased risk for so-called "silent strokes," according to a new study. Silent strokes, which cause no symptoms, "are typically seen in older adults, and these findings give us additional insight into why they tend to occur so often in children with sickle cell disease," senior study investigator Dr. James Casella, director of hematology at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said in a center news release. Casella and his colleagues performed MRI brain scans on 814 children with sickle cell disease, aged 5 to 15, and found that 31 percent of them had suffered silent strokes. None of the children had a history of strokes or seizures, and none showed any signs of stroke at the time of the study. After examining the children's medical histories, the ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
Sickle Cell May Be Hidden Danger to Young Athletes
Posted 17 Dec 2010 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Dec. 17 – Scott Galloway's perspective as a high school athletic trainer changed the day a 14-year-old female basketball player at his school suffered sudden cardiac arrest and died on the court. Her cause of death – exertional sickling, a condition that causes multiple blood clots – was something Galloway had only heard of as a student years before. But he quickly made it his mission to educate others about this complication of sickle cell trait (SCT). In the past four decades, exertional sickling has killed at least 15 football players in the United States, and in the past seven years alone, it was responsible for the deaths of nine young athletes aged 12 to 19, according to the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA). This year, two young football players have died from exertional sickling, said Galloway, a speaker at last week's NATA's Youth Sports Safety Crisis ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
Sickle Cell Kids at Greater Risk of 'Swine Flu' Complications
Posted 5 Sep 2010 by Drugs.com
FRIDAY, Sept. 3 – Children with sickle cell disease experience more life-threatening complications from the H1N1 swine flu than from seasonal flu, a new study has found. This means that doctors and parents need to be aware that children with sickle cell disease are more likely to need emergency treatment and to be hospitalized, Dr. John Strouse of Johns Hopkins Children's Center and colleagues explained in a Hopkins news release. The study authors analyzed the medical records of 123 children with sickle cell disease treated for any kind of flu between September 1993 and December 2009. Of those, 29 were infected with the 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus. Both seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus caused typical flu symptoms, such as fever, cough and a runny nose, in most of the children. However, those infected with H1N1 were nearly three times more likely to develop acute chest syndrome, a leading ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
Sickle Cell Disease Tied to Cognitive Difficulties
Posted 12 May 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, May 11 – Adults with sickle cell anemia are at increased risk for neurocognitive problems, which can affect their ability to cope with daily tasks such as work, managing their finances, taking medications, use of community resources, and socializing, a new study finds. The research included 149 patients with sickle cell anemia (SCA), ages 19 to 55, and a control group of 47 healthy people. Both groups underwent MRI brain scans and tests of neuropsychological function. Compared to the control group, the SCA patients had statistically significant lower average nonverbal function scores, and lower average scores for measures of processing speed, working memory, global cognitive function (which includes learning, memory and attention processes), and most measures of executive function (which includes the ability to control behavior, anticipate outcomes, adapt to change and make ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
Sickle Cell Disease Patients Seek Acute Pain Care Repeatedly
Posted 6 Apr 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, April 6 – People with sickle cell disease often visit hospitals repeatedly in search of treatment, according to new research. In eight states studied, researchers found that one-third of sickle cell patients who visited the hospital returned within 30 days in search of pain relief. Young people, between the ages of 18 and 30, were especially likely to seek care. "I think it's not so much a failure of the hospital itself, but a failure of us being able to prevent these complications and being able to treat them," said Dr. George R. Buchanan, a pediatrics professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who is familiar with the study findings. An estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people in the United States have sickle cell disease, an inherited and often-painful condition that causes red blood cells to turn into a sickle shape. Blacks are most vulnerable to the disease, ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
Statins Show Promise Against Sickle Cell
Posted 20 Jan 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Jan. 19 – The cholesterol drugs known as statins hold promise as a treatment for sickle cell disease, a common genetic disorder, new research has found. The findings, published Jan. 19 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, are based on experiments with mice, so it's not clear if humans with the disease will benefit from treatment with statins. Researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., found that among mice with a type of sickle cell disease, those that were treated with statins lived much longer after being infected with pneumococcal bacteria than those who didn't get the treatment. The cholesterol drugs appeared to stop cells from being killed by bacterial toxins and reduced the risk that germs would invade the blood system, according to the report. Children with sickle cell disease face a serious threat from pneumococcal bacteria, and the ... Read more
Related support groups: Simvastatin, Lipitor, Crestor, Pravastatin, Zocor, Lovastatin, Anemia - Sickle Cell, Atorvastatin, Rosuvastatin, Red Yeast Rice, Pravachol, Lescol, Lescol XL, Mevacor, Baycol
Bone Marrow Transplants May Cure Sickle Cell in Adults
Posted 10 Dec 2009 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 9 – Researchers say that a new method of bone marrow transplantation cured nine out of 10 adult patients with sickle cell disease, an inherited condition that causes bouts of severe pain, organ damage and sharply limits life expectancy. Adults have typically not been candidates because they were thought to be too sick to handle the high doses of chemotherapy and radiation necessary to prep the body for the procedure, explained senior study author Dr. John Tisdale, a senior investigator in the molecular and clinical hematology branch at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Until now, transplantation was generally reserved for more resilient children, whose bodies had not yet suffered as much damage from sickle cell disease. But the new method allows for a less grueling pre-transplantation routine, one that even adults with severe sickle cell can tolerate. More than ... Read more
Related support groups: Anemia - Sickle Cell
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