Sickle Cell Disease Essay

I’ve gone through days of chemotherapy to kill my unhealthy bone marrow and I feel awful. I’ve been stuck in a heavily quarantined area so I don’t get sick since the treatments required before the transplant deplete my immune system. So today is my transplant. And yeah… and I’m not ready for it. I guess I should be thankful they found a donor so fast. The doctor who is performing the procedure came in, introduced himself as Dr. Williams; told me he was a bone marrow transplant specialist, and gave me details on what he is going to. Dr. Williams began by explaining the exact procedure bone marrow transplant. He explained that during the procedure they will begin by giving the donor special shots that move stem cells into the bloodstream and then white blood cells with stem cells are sorted out through a machine. Then he went on to the part that scared me the most: a special catheter needle will be implanted on my chest to allow the direct flow of the donor's blood to my heart for a total of a few days. He went on further to tell me some of the risks. He said that there’s a possibility that my body will reject the donor cells, my organs could become damaged, there could be nausea or vomiting, fever, and a headache. These symptoms are more common in older people and he told me that there odds of these risks are slim, so this made me feel a lot better.

Sickle cell anemia occurs when a person inherits two abnormal genes (one from each parent) that cause their red blood cells to change shape. Instead of being flexible and round, these cells are more rigid and curved in the shape of the farm tool known as a sickle - that's where the disease gets its name. The shape

Sickle Cell Disease is an illness that affects people all across the globe. This paper will give a description of the sickness through the discussion of the causes, symptoms, and possible cures. Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a "group of inherited red blood cell disorders."(1) These disorders can have various afflictions, such as pain, damage and a low blood count--Sickle Cell Anemia.

In this article, sickle cell anemia is defined as a hereditary disease that destroys red blood cells by causing them take on an elongated and rigid "sickle" shape. In addition, a different type of hemoglobin called Hemoglobin S, is the protein in red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the body. This protein starts to wrap around other red blood cells when oxygen is lacking to form a helical shape. Once this happens the cells cluster together and elongate and the cells start to "sickle". A person who has sickle cell anemia can only get it if both of their parents carry the sickle cell trait, if only one parent has the trait then there children are at risk for having the trait.

Sickle cell anemia is an anemia that is inherited and mostly affects people whose heritage can be traced back to places where malaria was prevalent. There are approximately 100,000 Americans that have the disease and many more with the trait. Several of my family members are afflicted by this medical condition that causes red blood cells to take on an irregular shape.

Rejection can't be totally avoided; nonetheless, a level of safe resilience to the transplant develops. A few ideas have been proposed to clarify the advancement of halfway resistance. They incorporate clonal erasure and the advancement of anergy in benefactor particular lymphocytes, improvement of silencer lymphocytes, or variables that down-direct the insusceptible reaction against the join. Different speculations incorporate the steadiness of benefactor determined dendritic cells in the beneficiary that advance an immunologically interceded chimeric state between the beneficiary and the transplanted

Another health problem that treatment with embryonic stem cells can cause is tissue rejection. As is the case with current organ transplantation procedures, embryonic stem cells are harvested from many people all who possess a unique set of genes; therefore, the stem cells are not genetically matched for each patient (Herold 48-49). The difference in genetics causes the body to reject the tissue and the immune system begins to attack the transplanted tissue like it would a virus or bacteria in an attempt to remove the perceived threat. To avoid the implanted tissues being rejected by the body, doctors must prescribe immune suppression drugs that must be taken for the remainder of the patient’s life, even with these drugs the tissue may still be rejected and

This mutation paper is to give information on the Sickle Cell disease. This is a negative disease to have because the Sickle Cell Disease decreases the health of the person that has the disease and limits what they can and cannot do. Sickle Cell Disease is a red blood cell disease that causes ab normal hemoglobin to from in the veins. Hemoglobin is the protein that carries oxygen throughout the body to help with the respiratory system. The cause of the genetic mutation is inheritance or getting the disease from the parents the disease is found on chromosome 13 while the hemoglobin is still in beta phase on gene HB A. The disease typically shows symptoms within the first 5 to 6 months of birth and being diagnosed with Sickle Cell Disease. The symptoms include painful swelling on the hands and feet, and Jaundice, which causes a white color to form under the eyes, and turns the skin color yellow.

Their research had been developed on a basis of an observation of an HIV positive patient, who was undergoing treatment for leukaemia via the bone marrow transplantation method. This method is known to introduce new bone marrow into the immune system of the effected patient to revive the patient’s “new” immune system. The bone marrow that this patient had received was genetically mutated of its ∆32 CCR5 gene that resulted in the inactivation of the gene.

Three patients recovered without modification of the protocol, while two patients failed to recover. Two patients recovered after the addition of thymoglobulin and plasma exchange, and one of them required additional steroid therapy 103. Each of these protocols is currently being modified in order to achieve improved results. This study confirmed the safety of the approach and although this protocol found limited success, it underscores the motivation to identify a better line of treatment for kidney transplant recipients.

It is important to impair or remove the T cells from the transplant donor tissue because if this doesn't happen graft vs host disease could occur. When both the recipient and tissue from the donor transplant are not histocompatible one or the other could reject each other. The T cells in the donor will most likely recognize the HLA antigens within the recipient to be foreign. When this occurs the graft will usually reject the host. This can occur through two forms, either chronic GvHD or acute GvHD. Chronic GvHD can happen when the HLA’s match however it takes a few months to years for GvHD to develop and often times results in an autoimmunity issue due to an abundance of cytokines being released. Acute GvHD generally occurs with bone marrow transplants a couple to several weeks after the initial transplant and the host becomes immunosuppressed as a result.

Approximately, two million Americans carry the sickle cell trait. 72,000 people are affected by sickle cell anemia in the U.S., most of whose ancestors had come from sub Saharan Africa, Spanish speaking regions, and Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Greece, and Italy. In Hispanic American births, one in every thousand people acquire sickle cell anemia. The symptoms created by the blockage of blood flow can vary from patient to patient. Some have milder symptoms than others. Physicians use Hand-foot syndrome on patients to determine the disease. Sickle cells that clog small blood vessels in the hands and feet are one characteristic of the disease. Symptoms the patient suffers are swelling of the hands, feet and various joints. The pain

The sickle cell disease affects about 100,000 people in the America. The most common ethnic group the sickle cell anemia is seen in is African Americans and Hispanics. Approximately one in every ten African American and one in every one hundred Hispanic Americans have the sickle cell trait. Approximately two million people have the sickle cell trait in America. Approximately one in five- hundred African Americans and one in one thousand to one thousand and four hundred Hispanic-Americans have sickle cell disease. No universal cure has been found for sickle cell anemia (“Facts About Sickle Cell Trait And Disease,”n.d.). Sickle cell anemia affects many Americans and a universal cure needs to be found.

This disease is a genetic disease and it is hereditary. It is inherited as an autosomal recessive disease. This means that in order to get the gene you must receive a recessive trait from your mother and your father. The parents could both be heterozygous for the trait and therefore not have the disease, but instead they would both be a carrier. There are only a few ways that the parents could possibly pass the trait. One possibility of having a child with sickle-cell disease is if both parents are heterozygous and they both pass on their recessive allele, (25% chance for offspring to have sickle-cell disease). Another possibility

People today are still unsure of bone marrow transplants being the “cure” for specific diseases. Some are just not comfortable with risking the life they have left and putting it on the line to where you could lose it all, and trust me neither would most of us. Conditioning is one of the preparations they use for patients and it reduces the chances of the patients body rejecting the new cells but not always effective. Like I said earlier some people are still uncomfortable with this transplant even though we have come a long way but as always everyone's different and not everyone has success in extending their life as is mentions here, “The chances of success for individual patients can vary-everyong is different.” (). Infections othat can