Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle Cell disease

Melanie Lockwood

Anatomy and Physiology I

Prof. John Rowe

I have had a long standing fascination with sickle cell disease. Ever since I learned that the body took it upon itself to change the shape of a blood cell to protect itself from malaria, I have just been amazed. I am writing this paper more as a means to educate myself more on this disease rather than “well, I have to write about something”. Being a paramedic, I deal with a lot of different illnesses and injuries. But, I come from the northeast, so I had never dealt with scd, until just recently. I had a young gentleman who stated he was in sickle cell crisis, and that it comes on when he becomes dehydrated. Enroute to the hospital, I started an IV and gave him IV fluids. It wasn’t a cure-all, but I like to think it helped for the short time he was in my ambulance.

In my research, I learned SCD refers to a group of inherited red blood cell disorders. It is the most common genetic disease in the U.S. with an estimated 70,000-80,000 Americans having sickle cell disease. (The William E. Proudford Sickle Cell Fund, Inc., 2015) The gene variant that causes sickle cell disease evolved as a result of its surprising upside – malaria resistance. In the malaria belt regions of Africa, the Middle East, southern Europe and South Asia, this gene variant flourished because the benefits of malaria resistance outweighed the negative impact of sickle cell disease. Sickle cell is found more frequently in persons of Middle Eastern, Indian, Mediterranean and African heritage because those geographic regions are most prone to malaria. The gene variant for sickle cell disease is related to malaria, not skin color. (RACE, 2015)

People with SCD have abnormal hemoglobin, called hemoglobin S or sickle hemoglobin, in their red blood cells. People who have SCD inherit two abnormal hemoglobin genes, one from each parent. In all forms of SCD, at least one of the two abnormal genes causes...