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Sickle Cell Disease Essay

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1.1. Background on Sickle Cell Disease
Sickle cell disease is a disease that is most prevalent in people of African descent along with people of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern origin. This disease is known to affect about 70, 000 Americans and about 2 million people carry the trait (meaning that, they carry a single gene mutation). Sickle Cell Disease is an autosomal recessive genetic disease that occurs due to a mutation in the β-globin gene of hemoglobin. Autosomal meaning that it is not linked to a sex chromosome, so either parent can pass on the gene to their child. This mutation is a result of a single substitution of amino acids, Glutamic for Valine at position 6 of a β globin chain. The presence of this mutation causes …show more content…

He used a reduced intensity regimen to treat his patients. Reduced-intensity conditioning is a bridge between myeloablative and non-myeloablative conditioning. Myeloablative conditioning being the complete destruction of a recipient’s bone marrow while Non-myeloablative conditioning is a reduced form of myeloablative conditioning in the sense that a lower dose of chemotherapy and radiation therapy is used. The process starts with a high dose chemotherapy treatment and then a low dose chemotherapy treatment.
The idea behind Dr Krishnamurti’s treatment was that since the main target was the red blood cell, there was no need to completely destroy the patient’s own bone marrow. He deduced that a reduced- intensity conditioning would be suitable to let the donor cell successfully be engrafted and since the donor cell contains its own immune system, it will use it to clear out the recipients system.
Patients who underwent this procedure had to remain on immunosuppressive drugs for about 6 months to prevent the recipient’s immune system from destroying the donor cell. One out of seven patients that had this procedure done had a relapse because they stopped taking their immunosuppressant drug during the critical stage of treatment. This treatment has proven successful, but there still remains the concern of tissue rejection and other complication. Nevertheless, this approach still provides encouragement for people suffering with the disease.
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