Sickle Cell Anemia Essay Example

Sickle Cell Anemia "An ISU student died March 12 from complications of Sickle Cell Anemia…there is no cure for Sickle Cell Anemia" (Indiana Statesman, 2004). What is Sickle Cell Anemia? According to National Institute of Health, Sickle Cell Anemia is a lifelong, inherited blood disorder or disease, characterized primarily by chronic anemia and periodic episodes of pain. It is one form of sickle cell disease, a category of blood disorders caused by defective hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a substance in all red blood cells that enables them to carry oxygen from the lungs, through the bloodstream, to all parts of the body (systemic circulation). With Sickle Cell Anemia, the hemoglobin in the red blood cells is defective, instead of being smooth and donut or disc-shaped, the red blood cells become stiff and sickle-shaped. Therefore, organs and tissues are deprived of oxygen-rich blood, which produces periodic extreme episodes of pain and permanent damage to vital organs (NIH, 1987). The shape of the cell resembles that of a narrow curved blade or "sickle" that is used in cutting grasses -that is how the condition got its name (USDHEW, 1989). Historically, Dr. James B. Herrick, a well known heart specialist, wrote the first official report on what was to turn out to be a Sickle Cell Anemia. In 1910, he wrote up observations on the unusual case of a 20-year-old black college student, who was sick, in Chicago with many complicated symptoms ranging from shortness of breath, heart palpitation, cough, stomach and muscle pain, ulcers, dizziness, and etc (Linde, 1972). He did the examination of a drop of blood under the microscope, and what he saw were strange blood cells with odd shapes. Many of them were curved like crescents or sickles instead of being round like discs or donuts; the usual shape of a red blood cell. He claimed he had never seen anything like it before, and when he looked through the literature, he could not find any description of the sickle-shaped blood