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A multidisciplinary team of researchers recently created a computer simulation model that shows how the spleen regulates red blood cell circulation. The model could provide a new tool to study the spleen’s role in controlling diseases that affect the shape of red blood cells, such as sickle cell anemia and malaria. The research…

Global biopharma Bristol-Myers Squibb has joined the public-private Angola Sickle Cell Initiative to provide Angolan children who have sickle cell disease with an effective therapy unavailable to many patients in the West African country. The initiative is a collaborative project of the Angola Ministry of Health, the…

Researchers investigated the use of hydroxyurea, a drug approved to treat sickle cell anemia in adults, in young children in New York State who are receiving this treatment. The findings reveal that pediatric use of hydroxyurea is widespread and increasing, but that incomplete adherence may limit the treatment’s full disease-modifying effects. The study,…

Researchers developed a project using what are termed “quality improvement methods” to increase the number of sickle cell anemia (SCA) babies and toddlers between the ages of 24-27 months who undergo transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (TCD) to detect the risk of stroke. The findings show the intervention resulted in significantly improved TCD…

Global Blood Therapeutics, a biopharma developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of blood-based disorders, recently announced new results from its ongoing Phase 1/2 study of GBT440-001 in sickle cell disease (SCD). The data, presented at the European Hematology Association’s 21st Congress in Copenhagen, further supports the company’s plans to develop GBT440 as a…

With interest growing in the potential of community health workers to aid in the management and care of people with sickle cell disease (SCD), researchers investigated the possibilities, making suggestions for how best to use, train and evaluate these workers. Researchers recently investigated and summarized the potential of community health workers…

June 19 was World Sickle Cell Awareness Day, but while more than 94% of children with the disease in the United States live happier, full lives because of early diagnoses and good healthcare; the survival rate of children with sickle cell disease in sub-Saharan Africa sits at an alarming 10%. Knowing that 225,000 children in…

Sunday, June 19, is World Sickle Cell Awareness Day. The Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of California is one of the organizations focusing on the still-unmet needs of patients affected by the disease, and has announced the opening of multidisciplinary sickle cell disease (SCD) services, an initiative by the Pacific…

Researchers investigated how the levels of reticulocytosis, the increase of circulating immature red blood cells, correlated with increased hospitalizations and cerebrovascular pathologies in pediatric patients with sickle cell anemia (SCA) receiving chronic transfusion therapy (CTT). According to the findings, in this group of children with SCA, cerebrovascular pathology at initiation…

Researchers investigated renal papillary necrosis (RPN), a chronic complication of sickle cell anemia, and found low incidence in South-Eastern Nigerian sickle cell anemia patient cohort, but higher association rates with female patients. The study, “Prevalence and associations of symptomatic renal papillary necrosis in sickle cell anemia patients in South-Eastern Nigeria,” was…