View clinical trials related to Sickle Cell Anemia.
Filter by:Sickle cell anemia (SCA) is a serious blood disease with blood vessel changes leading to brain injury and stroke. Studies show about 11% of patients with SCA will develop obvious stroke before age 20 years, with children less than 10 years of age especially vulnerable. The main objective of the SCDMR4[State Of The Art Functional Imaging In Sickle Cell Disease] trial is to compare the gray matter cerebral blood flow, measured by MRI,[magnetic resonance imaging] ASL [Arterial Spin Labeling] perfusion before treatment begins and after the appropriate hydroxyurea dosage is reached (~ one year). Other important objectives of the SCDMR4 trial include describing the effect of hydroxyurea therapy and transfusion therapy on the functional MRI response, diffusion tensor imaging of white matter, brain function, and transcranial Doppler blood velocities.
Sickle cell nephropathy is a known complication of sickle cell anemia (SCA) manifested by increase in glomerular filtration rate (glomerular hyperfiltration) and results in proteinuria and chronic renal failure. Our goal is to examine the prevalence of proteinuria and microalbuminuria as an early predictive factor of glomerular injury, among young people who suffer from SCA as well as those who suffer from combined sickle cell/beta-thalassemia.
Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a hereditary anemia that causes the red blood cells to change their shape from a round and doughnut-like shape to a half-moon/crescent, or sickled shape. People who have SCD have a different type of hemoglobin (protein that carries oxygen). This different type of hemoglobin makes the red blood cells change into a crescent shape under certain conditions. Sickle-shaped cells are a problem because they often get stuck in the blood vessels blocking the flow of blood and can cause inflammation and injury to important areas of the body. All babies are born with hemoglobin called fetal hemoglobin (HbF). Soon after birth, HbF production slows down and another hemoglobin called adult hemoglobin (HbA) is made. Clinical studies have shown that increasing the amount of HbF in the blood may prevent sickling of the red blood cells. Vorinostat has been used in the treatment of cancers and in other research studies and information from those suggests that it may help treat SCD by increasing the amount of HbF in the blood. The purpose of this research study is to determine the effectiveness and safety of vorinostat when used to treat SCD.
Background: Bone marrow transplantation (BMT), which involves transplanting a donor's marrow stem cells, is capable of curing some congenital anemias. BMT usually involves high-intensity treatment with chemotherapy and radiation to kill abnormal cells, which affects all systems of the body. People with anemias often have damage to other organs such as the kidneys, which can be further damaged by the chemotherapy. Only approximately 20 percent of patients have a full-matched donor, making treatment for many people with anemias unavailable. However, 90 percent of patients may have a half-matched donor, but using a half-matched donor increases the toxicity of BMT. Objectives: To determine if a research BMT with half-matched donor cells, low-intensity radiation, immunosuppressant drugs, and no chemotherapy will be effective in patients with sickle cell disease and Beta-thalassemia. To determine the effectiveness of cyclophosphamide, an immunosuppressant drug, in preventing rejection of the donor cells. Eligibility: Recipients are individuals at least 18 years of age who have been diagnosed with sickle cell disease and Beta-thalassemia, and who have a family member who is a haploidentical (i.e., half match) tissue match. Donors are healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 80 who are found to be suitable donors. Design: Donors will undergo apheresis, which involves withdrawing blood from one arm vein, passing it through a machine that removes bone marrow stem cells, and returning the remaining blood through the vein in the other arm. Donors will receive a drug that causes the stem cells to be released into the bloodstream prior to the apheresis procedure. Recipients will undergo routine physical and laboratory examinations, including bone marrow sampling at the beginning of the study. After transplantation, physical and laboratory examinations will occur on a weekly or twice weekly basis at the outpatient clinic. Recipients will be examined every 6 months starting 100 days posttransplant for 5 years. Recipients will receive low-dose radiation in two treatments 1 and 2 days before the transplant. They will also be given immunosuppressant therapy with alemtuzumab and sirolimus. Another immunosuppressant drug, cyclophosphamide, will be given in the future as needed to subsets of the recipients to prevent rejection of donor cells. Recipients will receive the donor stem cells through a previously inserted central line. The process takes up to 8 hours. Recipients will receive blood transfusions as necessary to prevent anemia and bleeding during the posttransplant period. They may also receive intravenous antibiotics to prevent infection.
Patients suffering from Thalassemia or another hemoglobinopathies required regular blood transfusions. The complications and adverse effects of blood transfusions can be classified as immediate and late. Among the immediate effects the most common are allergic reactions and fever, besides congestive heart failure in patients with cardiomyopathy. The late effects are mostly related to blood transmitted infections like HIV or Hepatitis C infections. The purpose of this study is to summarize the data of those complications in a cohort of 100 patients receiving regular blood transfusion.
The spleen in Sickle Cell Anemia and Sickle Cell Thalassemia is usually enlarged in the first years of life but the immune protection provided is considered insufficient. In homozygous Sickle cell patients the spleen usually developed recurrent infarcts and after the first decade of age become fibrotic. Acute splenic sequestration is also frequent in those patients and this is considered as an indication for splenectomy. In comparison in Sickle cell thalassemia patients, hypersplenism is more frequent. The purpose of this study is to compare the clinical and laboratory issues related to the spleen in two groups of Sickle cell patients.
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) at rest is a risk factor for death in patients with sickle-cell anemia (SCA). Exercise echocardiography (EE) can detect latent PH. We sought to investigate the occurrence of exercise-induced PH in patients with SCA and normal pulmonary pressure (PP) at rest, and its relationship with clinical and echocardiographic variables.Forty-four patients with SCA and normal PP at rest were studied and divided into two groups: exhibiting normal PP after treadmill EE (TRV≤2.7m/s) (G1), and exhibiting exercise-induced PH (TRV>2.7m/s) (G2). TRV cutoff points at rest and during exercise were based on data from healthy control subjects, matched for age, sex, and body surface area. Data obtained from EE were correlated with clinical, echocardiographic and ergometric variables.Exercise-induced PH occurred in 57% of the sample (G2), significantly higher than those of G1. Exercise-induced PH was related to higher levels of creatinine (p<0.05), increased left atrial volume (p<0.05) and right ventricular diastolic area (p<0.05), larger E/Em waves ratio derived from spectral and tissue Doppler (p<0.05), and higher TRV at rest (p<0.005).We concluded that patients with SCA and normal PP at rest may exhibit exercise-induced PH, which was related to renal function, increased cardiac chambers, abnormal indices of diastolic function and baseline TRV levels.
The investigators would like to study the endothelial function in sickle cell patients without pulmonary hypertension in an in vivo method during a steady state condition before and after sildenafil treatment for 1 month, and to study the effects of this nitric oxide donor by measuring the Flow Mediated Dilatation, by measuring endothelial progenitor stem cells colonies, and by measuring the effect of therapy on markers of inflammation (cell adhesion molecules and cytokines).
Quality of life of adult patients with sickle cell disease is deeply impaired by severe adverse medical events that inadvertently occur throughout their time life. Indeed, patients not presenting a life threatening condition often present to the emergency department with sickle cell disease crisis related pain. Currently, the effectiveness of specific analgesic strategies for treating sickle cell disease crisis related pain are mostly based on acetaminophen and opioid derivates combination along with oxygen delivery. Those strategies are effective but may last up to half an hour to obtain pain relief. This delay mostly depends on the availability of venous access and on individual patient response to treatment. Nitrous oxide is a volatile efficient analgesic therapy that has been repeatedly shown to allow rapid analgesia in the emergency department setting. The investigators hypothesise that a new analgesic strategy (rapid optimized analgesic strategy) including nitrous oxide and nefopam would be as safe and more rapidly effective than current analgesic strategy.
Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is the most prevalent genetic disease of haemoglobin.The underlying abnormality in the red blood cell (RBC) of SCD is the presence of abnormal sickle cell hemoglobin (HbS), which, when deoxygenated, becomes relatively insoluble, forms aggregates with other hemoglobin molecules within the RBC and causes rigid deformation of the cell. Acute pain vaso-occlusive crisis, strokes and acute chest syndrome are the main acute complications, sometimes life-threatening, often leading to organic and functional squeal. Although the common SS form of SCD is a unique gene disorder, the range of the clinical severity is remarkably wide and striking, suggesting that clinical polymorphism is due to modifier genes and environmental factors.Most of the research efforts have been focused on the biology of haemoglobin and of the red cells. Meanwhile, the complex pathophysiology of SCD is undoubtedly influenced by the many physiologic functions of the vascular wall. In line with this hypothesis are several reports of increased circulating levels of endothelium-derived surface molecules in SCD patients suggesting marked endothelial stress in SCD. Similarly, other processes that involve the endothelium, such as leukocyte adhesion and activation, may play a role in vascular occlusion. This accumulation of data raises the unanswered question of the mechanisms of endothelium maintenance and regeneration in SCD. Through these mechanisms, it is likely that function or dysfunction of the vascular endothelium contributes to the overall vascular pathobiology of this disease, which includes recurrent vaso-occlusions, stroke, leg ulcers, chronic organ ischemic damages, and neovascularizing retinopathy that affect nearly one-half (48%) of the surviving patients by the fifth decade.Thus, our groups have combined their respective clinical and biological expertises to test the hypothesis that SCD is a condition of specific endothelial stress and dysfunction upon chronic and Paracystic abnormal interactions with circulating cells and abnormal oxygen delivery to tissues. Specifically, we hypothesize that chronic endothelial stress with detachment of activated endothelial cells require increases mobilisation of the Endothelial Progenitor Cells (EPCs) that maintain endothelial homeostasis to avoid major thromboembolic events and vasospasm. Inappropriate mobilisation or maturation of the EPCs in SCD may participate to the severity of the disease.