Sickle cell disease, which affects primarily people of African descent, is caused by a genetic mutation that gives red blood cells a sickle shape, hindering their ability to carry oxygen and causing them to clog blood vessels. It can cause stroke, severe pain and organ damage -- especially to the lungs, kidneys and liver -- and can be fatal.Researchers have for the first time performed a successful bone marrow transplant to cure sickle cell disease in adults, a feat that could expand the procedure to more of the 70,000 Americans with the disease and possibly some other diseases as well.
About 200 children have been cured of sickle cell with transplants, but the procedure was considered too harsh for adults with severe sickle cell disease. Now a team from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University is reporting today in the New England Journal of Medicine that it has developed a much-less-toxic transplant procedure and used it to cure nine of the first 10 patients studied.
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