Sickle Cell Anemia:
Sickle cell anaemia is considered to be an inborn error leading to the blood disorder, affecting more than one million children only in India.
What Is Sickle Cell Anemia?
Sickle cell anaemia is considered to be an inborn error leading to the blood disorder, affecting more than one million children only in US. The disease is passed over to the child through affected or carrier parents. It has been studied that, if both the parents have contributed one affected gene to the child, there can be a possibility of synthesizing abnormal or sickle haemoglobin by the body.
Two types of abnormalities can be inherited due to faulty genes, one is sickle cell anaemia and the other one is thalassemia.
It has been observed that in sickle cell anaemia, irregular red blood cells can block the flow of blood and supply of oxygen to different parts of the body; causing a disease.
James Herrick, was a physician who had first described characteristic sickle shaped red cells
Sickle Cell Anemia
How Prevalent Is Sickle Cell Anaemia?
With current demographic details, in a developing country like India, almost 40% of the sickle gene is found to be widespread among many tribal population of India.
Globally, it has been estimated that the disease affects approximately 1, 00,000 Americans. Its occurrence can be estimated to be 1 out of every 365 African American births. In case of Hispanic American births, the prevalence rate is found to be 1 out of 16,300 populations. The study has as well confirmed that about 1 in 13 black or African-American babies are born with the sickle cell traits.
Due to advanced treatment regimen the death rate of sickle cells anaemia has been decreased to considerable level from 1992 to 2002. This can be accounted as:
- 68% at the age of 0 to 3 years
- 39% at the age of 4 to 9 years
- 24% at the age of 10 to 14 years
Factors Responsible For Scad
Sickle cell anaemia is a genetic disorder, mainly due to error in the expression of gene. The research has suggested that the mutations in the HBB gene are responsible for expressing sickle cell disease.
Symptoms: Generally, symptoms of sickle cell anaemia are varied and are patient specific; however, some of the commonly trapped symptoms can be:
- Severe pain
- Anaemia
- Pain in the chest with breathing difficulty
- Joint pains that can be considered as arthritis
- Strokes, seizures, etc
- Blockage of the blood flow in vital organs such as limbs, liver, spleen, etc.
- Severe infection
- Severe pain in the back, arms, abdomen, etc.
- Can cause permanent brain damage
Prognosis Of The Sickle Cell Anaemia Disease
Sickle cell red blood cells can be visibly detected under the microscope. The disease is particularly diagnosed by blood test, measuring the amount of abnormal red blood cells.
Prenatal testing for the condition is available by examining DNA of the amniotic fluid obtained from chorionic villus sampling.
With the conventional treatment options, the condition can be managed by administration of opioids, anti-inflammatory conditions, antibiotic infections, oxygen treatment or oral administration of some medicine. All these treatments can only manage pain, but cannot alter the condition. Hence there is always been a need of advanced technology that can alter the condition to minimize the complications associated with the condition.
What Goes Wrong In The Scad?
- Severe pain
- Anaemia
- Pain in the chest with breathing difficulty
- Joint pains that can be considered as arthritis
- Strokes, seizures, etc
- Blockage of the blood flow in vital organs such as limbs, liver, spleen, etc.
- Severe infection
- Severe pain in the back, arms, abdomen, etc.
- Can cause permanent brain damage
Oxygen is necessary even at the cellular level to maintain its functional ability. A protein known as the Haemoglobin in the red blood cell is mainly responsible for carrying oxygen to different vital organs of the body. Normal red blood cells are oval in shape, which allows them to be flexible enough to pass through large as well as small blood vessels to deliver oxygen.
Due to genetic modification, altered version of beta globin chains are being synthesized, giving rise to haemoglobin S instead of haemoglobin. This in turn can form stiff rod like structures in red blood cells changing it to the crescent or sickle shape. These sickle shaped red blood cells are non flexible, sticking to the vessel walls. This will block the flow of blood cells; thus preventing oxygen to be supplied to nearby tissues. This hypoxic condition can give rise to sudden pain without warning.
The increased frequency of the condition can cause severe organ damage such as brain, heart, lungs, liver, heart, kidney, etc. Since the damage of the red blood cells in the sickle cell condition is higher as compared to their synthesis, the condition can give rise to severe anaemia, most of the times.
How Stem Cells Treatment Can Help!
Stem cells are the mother cells that are responsible for developing an entire human body from a tiny two celled embryo; due to their unlimited divisions and strong power to differentiate into all the cells of different lineage. This power of stem cells has been harnessed by the technology to isolate them outside the human body, concentrate in the clean environment and infused back.
Thus, stem cells treatment involves administration of concentrated cells in the targeted area to form colonies; a peculiar characteristic of stem cells, adapt the properties of resident stem cells and initiate some of the lost functions that have been compromised by the disease or injury.
Various studies have suggested that stem cells obtained from matched allogenic donor can be very effective for the condition, reversing it to be normal. The child has to undergo complete destruction of his/her own bone marrow and undergo infusion of bone marrow stem cells from allogenically matched donor.
The haematopoietic stem cells and some percentage of mesenchymal stem cells are found to be very effective in complete replacement of total bone marrow with the healthy cells, due to their regeneration power. It has as well been suggested that the population of mesenchymal stem cells will home in different damaged areas to give rise to different organ specific cells, which have been damaged to restore back their function. However, the earlier the treatment starts; the more effective the treatment can be.
Treatment Of Sickle Cell Anaemia At GIOSTAR
We have mastered the technology for isolating maximum number of viable stem cells allogeneically with the matched donor to treat various patients with SCAD. We are the licensed, private organization with the excellent, well equipped state of the art facility to isolate, process and enrich the viable number of stem cells, which can be re infused back into the patient’s body. Generally, these cells are administered through any one of the below mentioned methods depending upon our expert’s advice:
LOCAL ADMINISTRATION
Through this mode, cell are infused directly at the targeted site of injury. Thus, in case of cancer of particular organ, cells can be directly infused at the targeted site after prescribed chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy.
INTRAVENOUS ADMINISTRATION
Through this mode, cells are infused through the veins to expand blood volumes in the central nervous system, to ensure that the maximum number of cells are reaching to the targeted area.
Thus, once infused back in the body, these cells are known to revamp the cellular system in bone marrow as well as in damaged organs. Thus, the recovery period after the transplant, is found to be between 1 to 2 months; depending upon the child health, age and will power.
The collected data from various clinical trials has suggested that 85 out of 100 children have restructured body’s natural defence mechanism completely after stem cells treatment.
What Sets Us Apart
- Headquartered in the USA.
- The founder is the leading authority in the field of stem cell science credited with helping in setting up the stem cell research programs at top research institutions in the USA including Salk Research Institute, Sanford-Burnham Institute, UCI, UCSD.
- Scientific And Medical Advisers/Consultants are luminaries who have worked at leading Universities in the USA and Europe.
- State of the art and the first private Stem cell treatment hospital in India inaugurated by (then Chief Minister of State of Gujarat) and present Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi
- One of the world’s largest Stem Cell Hospitals funded by the government of Gujarat, India.
Disclaimer : Results may vary for each patient. GIOSTAR practice the application of stem cell therapy within the legal regulations of each country.