Recent peer-reviewed study supports what patients shared with their own voices: Automated red blood cell exchange improves the lives of people struggling with sickle cell disease LAKEWOOD, Colo. , Nov. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pain.
It haunts patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). They live with the looming threat of acute pain crises that could land them in the hospital — where they can struggle to find relief. "A sickle cell disease pain crisis is indescribable.
It takes your breath, it takes everything," comments Bola Jibodu, a Sickle Cell Warrior from the UK. Especially after a major SCD drug was recently withdrawn from the market, [1] patients will be looking for other options to prevent pain and other dangerous complications from a disease that robs them of so much. Thankfully, another therapeutic avenue already exists — automated red blood cell exchange (aRBCX), where the problematic sickled blood cells are removed and replaced with healthy donor cells.
A team from Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies (Terumo BCT) recently completed a meta-analysis of retrospective data comparing the efficacy of different transfusion modalities used historically in SCD. A meta-analysis refers to a statistical method where researchers combine results from multiple studies that all used retrospective data (meaning they looked back at previously collected data) to analyze a particular research question, providing a more comprehensive picture compared to analyzing each individual study.