Clinical Severity of Sickle Cell Anaemia in Children in the Gambia: A Cross-Sectional Study
Published on: 8th January, 2025
Background: Sickle cell anaemia (SCA) in children demonstrates a broad range of clinical manifestations and serious complications. Assessment of disease severity in specific populations is necessary to plan services and optimise care. Aim: To describe the clinical severity of SCA and associated sociodemographic and clinical factors in children in Gambia.Methods: The presence of lifetime complications was confirmed by history and review of medical charts. We determined clinical severity using a validated scoring system and related the severity to sociodemographic and clinical factors.Results: In 130 study participants, ages ranged from 5 to 15 years with a mean (SD) age of 9.74 (2.81) years. Eleven (8.5%) children had had acute chest syndrome, 7 (5.4%) avascular necrosis of the femoral head, 6 (4.6%) gallstones, 5 (3.8%) stroke and 1 (0.8%) priapism over their lifetime. Disease severity was classified as mild in 108 (83.1%) children, moderate in 17 (13.1%) and severe in 5 (3.8%). Age, age at diagnosis, sex, ethnicity, social class, and treatment with hydroxyurea was not significantly correlated with SCA clinical severity (P values 0.10-0.84).Conclusion: The high proportion of children with mild disease may be due to the high prevalence of Senegalese β-haemoglobin haplotype in the Senegambia subregion. However, the presence of moderate or severe disease in almost 1 in 5 children calls for concerted efforts in SCD care in this region.
Search by University/Institution
Enter your University/Institution to find colleagues at HSPI.
Ensuring author's satisfaction with
- Friendly and hassle-free publication process
- Less production time of articles
- Constructive peer-review
- Enhancing journal reputation
- Regular feedback system
- Quick response to authors' queries
Most Viewed Keywords
- Biopsy
- Acquired factor VII deficiency
- Robertsonian translocations
- Pulmonary
- Xanthogranulomatosis
- GC-MS
- Ambient temperature
- System and synthetic biology
- COVID-19
- Acute pneumonia
- Caregiver
- Preterm premature rupture of membranes
- Cannabis
- Coumarin
- Gravity
- Adolescence
- C-reactive protein
- PET TAC
- Diabetes
- Nuclear medicine
Search Articles by Country
Get all latest articles in all Heighten Science Publications Inc journals by country.
Testmonials
It was a great experience publishing through JCICM. The article has reached out to several institutions. Appreciate your professional work. Hope to work with you again
Anas Wardeh
Thanks you and your colleague for the great help for our publication. You always provide prompt responses and high quality of service. I am so happy to have you working with me. Thanks again!
Diana (Ding) Dai
Your service is very good and fast reply, also your service understand our situation and support us to publication our articles.
Ayman M Abu Mustafa
I wanna to thank Clinical Journal of Nursing Care and Practice for its effort to review and publish my manuscript. This is reputable journal. Thank you!
Atsedemariam Andualem
Archives of Vascular Medicine is one of the top class journal for vascular medicine with highly interesting topics. You did a professional and great Job!
Elias Noory
"It was a pleasure to work with the editorial team of the journal on the submission of the manuscript. The team was professional, fast, and to the point".
NC A&T State University, USA
Moran Sciamama-Saghiv
In my opinion, you provide a very fast and practical service.
Ahmet Eroglu
It has been a fabulous journey writing articles for your journal because of the encouragement you people provide for writers from developing nations like India. Kindly continue the same. Looking forwa...
Badareesh Lakshminarayana
I want to thank you for our collaboration. You were fast and effective with a positive spirit of teamwork. I am truly excited from our collaboration. You were like always fast, efficient and accurate...
Aikaterini Solomou
I am delighted and satisfied with. Heighten Science Publications as my manuscript was thoroughly assessed and published on time without delay. Keep up the good work.
Ido-Ekiti/Afe Babalola University, Nigeria