A 17-year-old African American female presented to the clinic with the following symptoms, chest and abdominal pain, and jaundice eyes. Her vital signs revealed B/P 98/50, pulse 112, respiration. 28 and temp. 99.9. EKG and chest x-ray completed with the result within normal range. She was discharged, and within four hours returned to the ER.
Sickle cell disease is defined as a group of heredity disorder characterized by abnormal hemoglobin, called hemoglobin S (Hb S) in the red blood cells (Kalai et al., 2017). It is a heredity disease which passes from parent to children. It is more prevalent among African America (National Heart-lung and Blood Institute, 2016). There is test put in place to screen newborn for sickle cell. An individual can be tested for sickle cell disorder with a blood test called hemoglobin electrophoresis (National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, 2016). When a patient is diagnosed with this disease it means that they have inherited two abnormal hemoglobin genes from their mother and father (National Heart …show more content…
This new symptom does not change my differential diagnose. Blood travels throughout the body, so any body part can be affected by sickle cell. The brain is no exception and sudden disturbance of blood flow to the brain can cause blockage within arteries which can lead to stroke (Ngo & Steinberg, 2014). In the sickle cell patient the sickle red blood cell and block blood vessel in the brain and cause stroke. The patient would be treated by exchange transfusion, which means slowly removing some of the patients’ blood and replace with a donor blood who does not have sickle cell disease (National Heart Lung and Blood Institution, 2016). Sickle cell patient between the age of 2 and 16 should have a yearly transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasound screening. This test can evaluate their risk factor for getting a