5 Treatment of sickle cell disease to consider

The world of science has never relied on the search for drugs or curative treatments for sickle cell disease. In Indonesia, some forms of treatment for sickle cell disease are available, but only in a number of large hospitals.

Sickle cell disease is a hereditary disease when there are uneven red blood cells, but it looks like a crescent. This abnormal form causes a buildup of blood cells in blood vessels, causing pain in people with organ damage.

Sickle-shaped red blood cells have a very short life span of 10 to 20 days. While normal red blood cells can live up to 120 days.

These differences make the owner of sickle red blood cells vulnerable to a disease called anemia less pseudonim.

What are the symptoms of lack of blood that indicate sickle cell disease?

In general, sickle cell disease causes symptoms of blood deficiency. These symptoms may include:

Pale color on skin, lips and nails.
Feeling tired quickly.
Complaining headache
Hard to breathe.
It feels like floating.
Picky or grumble.
Difficult to concentrate.
Heart beating fast.

While anemia in young children can be characterized by the appearance of jaundice (jaundice). This disease causes the skin and oral cavity of the child to turn yellow. The whites of the eyes will also appear yellow.

Pain crisis as a typical symptom of sickle cell disease
In addition to the general symptoms of blood loss mentioned above, people with sickle cell anemia can experience typical symptoms, which are painful spasms.

Painful crises occur when people with cold, stressed or dehydrated skin are affected. Here are some indications of a painful crisis that might occur:

The pain appears in several areas of the body.
Pain that lasts several hours to several days can even be longer.

Sometimes, painful seizures can be treated at home. But there are also patients who must be sent to the hospital during this phase.

At the hospital, the care of patients with sickle cell anemia aims to prevent complications and maintain the health of as many children as possible. What are the forms of treatment?

Various steps to treat sickle cell disease

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), several types of treatment can be used to treat sickle cell anemia:

This type of drug is safe to reduce the risk of complications from sickle cell disease. However, pregnant women should consult with a doctor first. The reason is that pregnant women experience side effects that are not yet known when hydroxyurea is used.

Oral L-glutamine powder

The treatment of sickle cell disease has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2017.

Medications marketed under the Endari brand can be consumed by patients with adult sickle cell anemia or by children over the age of five.

Stem cell therapy

The only treatment method that can really cure sickle cell disease is a bone marrow transplant. This method involves grafting healthy stem cells from another person into the patient's bone marrow.

Bone marrow is the center of red blood cell production. Therefore, the treatment of sickle cell anemia aims to replace damaged bone marrow with new ones, so that the body has flat, non-sickle red blood cells.

However, stem cell therapy requires donors whose bone marrow status is similar and compatible with the recipient. In addition, bone marrow transplant has serious side effects, including various serious diseases that can cause death.

Therapies for the treatment of sickle cell disease are being developed

Researchers are also trying to develop new therapies to treat sickle cell anemia. These therapies include:

Gene therapy

Normal genes will be injected into the bone marrow with sickle cell anemia. Other gene therapy involves reactivating fetal hemoglobin, a type of hemoglobin that is only found in newborns until the age of five months, which inhibits the production of sickle-shaped red blood cells. .

Nitric oxide

Patients with sickle cell anemia are advised to breathe nitric oxide gas to open wider blood vessels and reduce sickle cell adhesions. But so far, the effect of this gas is still very low in sickle cell anemia patients.

Because this is a hereditary disease, sickle cell disease can be experienced because the patient is still a child. Therefore, examination of newborns is very important.

The main goal of treating sickle cell disease is to prevent complications in patients. To determine which method is the most appropriate, a medical diagnosis and examination is needed.