News Room
Newsletter
Read our biweekly newsletter about developing sickle cell therapies and new legislation for the disease. Be updated on our upcoming events, current events/findings and progress on sickle cell disease and community.
Medical Therapies
Currently, the only cures for this disease is stem cell therapy or bone marrow transplant. However, the significant risks involved limit the use of them. Despite the limited treatments for it, there are medications to treat its symptoms. There are currently new developments to the new treatments for the disease. Learn more about them by clicking on the button on the right.
Legislation
Because of the limited services for the disease, there are proposed legislation for the expansion of its services and outreach of them in California. The bill directs the California legislature to make $15 million available to create a variety of new services for Californians with sickle cell disease (SCD) over the next three years. Read more about the Sickle Cell Action Plan introduced by California Assembly member Mike Gipson.
ASH Sickle Cell Guidelines
Cardiopulmonary and Kidney Disease in Sickle Cell Disease:
Screening and Management
A POCKET GUIDE FOR THE CLINICIAN
December 2019
Sickle Cell TRAIT & Kidney Cancer
Tamika Moseley
Renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) is an aggressive form of non–clear cell kidney cancer that typically affects young adults and is almost exclusively associated with sickle cell trait. Prognosis is extremely poor, with a mean survival of less than a year in most cases.
Renal medullary cancer is a rare malignancy almost exclusively seen in young patients of African ethnicity. These patients often present with the cardinal symptoms of hematuria (which is blood in the urine), flank pain, and an abdominal mass, and this malignancy has been associated with patients carrying sickle cell trait. It is estimated that 300 million people worldwide carry sickle cell trait, and the presence of blood in the urine in these patients should be treated as possible malignancy.
Renal medullary cancer was described in 1995 by Davis et al. in a case series of 34 patients collected over 22 years. He reported a highly aggressive neoplasm with microscopic morphology of sickled erythrocytes in the tissue. Sickle cell trait was linked to all the cases except one patient who had hemoglobin SC disease. To date, approximately 120 cases have been described in the medical literature, with only one report of its association with sickle cell disease. Nearly 75% of the tumor masses are reported to be on the right side and evidence of metastatic disease at the time of presentation is not uncommon.
