Diagnosis and Treatment

With the help of our modern technology, sickle cell anemia can be easily found the day you are born. With the use of genetic screening, newborn babies are checked whether they have the sickle cell disease or not. The results do not come immediately, once the results are determined, the final report is sent to the family doctor. If the newborn is diagnosed with sickle cell anemia the family doctor will refer the parents to take the child to a hematologist, a doctor who specializes in blood disorders.

⁸For parents who want to know whether their unborn baby carries the disease there is an option they may take to find out. Doctors can sample amniotic fluid (fluid that surrounds the unborn baby in the mother's womb) to search for the sickle cell trait.

When dealing with adults, a blood test can check for hemoglobin S. A blood sample is taken and screened for hemoglobin S. If the result for the screening test is negative, there is no sickle cell gene present in the DNA. If the result of the test is positive, more tests will be done to determine whether there are one or two alleles present for the sickle cell gene. Many tests are done before diagnosis to ensure that there are no mistakes in the process, this avoids false accusations. ⁷Once diagnosed with sickle cell anemia, the patient is sent to a genetic counsellor who is an expert in the disease. Treatment will begin from that point onwards.

 There are ways of reducing the symptoms of sickle cell anemia but it is impossible to completely cure the disease. To reduce symptoms, doctors prescribe patients with vaccines, antibiotics, folic acid supplements and pain killers. Patients are required to do constant check-ups to check their red blood cell count and oxygen levels. In very severe cases, doctors may request blood transfusions.  In a blood transfusion, red blood cells are given to the patient from donated blood. This increases the number of red blood cells in the patient's body, which helps ease anemia and reduces the risks of strokes. The down side to regular blood transfusions is that there is a build up of iron in the patient's body which can damage the heart, liver, and other organs. To solve this issue, patients who receive regular blood transfusions must take supplements to reduce their iron levels.

 Cures for sickle cell anemia are still being researched and by far the only treatment discovered is a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow transplant requires the affected bone marrow to be replaced by a donor's healthy bone marrow. After the replacement, the patient takes many drugs to help prevent the donated stem cells from rejecting the transplant. The down side to bone marrow transplant is that it is expensive, ranging from $15,000 - $50,000⁴. Also there are many risks towards performing the surgery like internal bleeding in the lungs, rejection of the transplant by the stem cells, and decrease in immunity. Another factor that makes this transplant difficult is searching for a donor. Therefore, more research is being done to find a safer, more reliable cure to sickle cell anemia.

The bone marrow that must be replaced in a bone marrow transplant. Image taken from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/images/longbone.jpg