When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the postponement of a rare disease film festival originally slated for May, its organizers set out to find a new way to bring the films to an audience. Co-founders Daniel DeFabio and Bo Bigelow, who are both fathers of children with…
News
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) awarded nearly $1 million to Athena Starlard-Davenport, a professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), to support work into fetal hemoglobin as a potential way of treating sickle cell disease (SCD). “For the past 100 years,…
With a stem cell transplant (SCT) being a potentially curative treatment for sickle cell disease (SCD), a blood disorder that disproportionately affects Blacks, a donor registry is encouraging more African-Americans to join its ranks. Be The Match, the world’s largest and most diverse marrow registry, has opened…
Emotional distress affected nearly half of the parents caring for adolescents with sickle cell disease in a recent study, with greater numbers of hospital visits and other life disruptions predicting higher stress levels. Psychosocial support and education to help caregivers be more resilient and better able to cope could improve…
A European Medicines Agency (EMA) committee has adopted a positive opinion on Novartis‘s Adakveo (crizanlizumab) for the prevention of vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) in people with sickle cell disease (SCD). The EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended the conditional approval of…
Most people with sickle cell disease (SCD) in the U.S. are satisfied with their primary care practitioners, but less so with emergency care given at a hospital to manage severe pain, according to a survey of more than 400 teenage and adult patients. How a person expects to be…
Cannabis could be a safe and potentially effective way of easing chronic pain in people with sickle cell disease (SCD), according to results of a small clinical trial. Although the benefits in pain were not statistically significant compared to a placebo, pain interference in mood decreased over the five-day…
An umbilical cord blood transplant, coupled with a reduced intensity conditioning (RIC) regimen, can safely and effectively treat children with genetic disorders that include sickle cell disease (SCD) and thalassemia, data from a Phase 2 trial show. These findings are detailed in the study, “Reduced-intensity single-unit…
Blood stem cell transplant from unrelated donors is a feasible strategy in people with sickle cell disease (SCD), with better outcomes when blood markers are matched between donor and recipient, a study suggests. The study, “The role of HLA matching in unrelated donor hematopoietic stem cell…
Bronchodilators used to treat asthma could worsen sickle cell disease (SCD) in children and teens, and contribute to a greater risk of vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC), a study suggests. The study, “Salbutamol Worsens the Autonomic Nervous System Dysfunction of Children With Sickle Cell Disease”…
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