National Sickle Cell Awareness Month is recognized in September to educate about the disease and share treatment options and research breakthroughs.
2030
National Sickle Cell Awareness Month is a time to increase recognition and support people living with sickle cell disease. New and expecting parents should prepare by learning about screening their newborn baby for sickle cell. Additionally, the Healthy People 2030 objectives aim to improve health for people who have blood disorders. Healthy People 2030 aims to increase the number of people who donate blood to use for lifesaving procedures, to prevent illness and disability related to blood disorders, and to educate on the medication and treatment options available for patients living with blood disorders.
4
There are many strategies to help with managing sickle cell disease. Children that have sickle cell disease may start treatment and disease management by seeing a hematologist, and for newborns, the first hematology visit should take place before 8 weeks of age. For some patients, blood transfusions or pain medications may also be needed, according to the NIH. For certain patients, curative therapies like a bone marrow transplant may be necessary. Additionally, four medicines have been approved to treat sickle cell disease. In 1998, hydroxyurea was approved. Later, voxelotor, L-glutamine, and crizanlizumab-tmca were approved, which all treat different symptoms associated with the disease.
100,000
Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects more than 100,000 people in the United States and 20 million people worldwide, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In people with sickle cell disease, red blood cells become rigid and deform into a crescent (sickle) shape. These types of deformed blood cells often become lodged in small blood vessels, restricting blood flow and leading to serious health complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
20 years
In people with sickle cell disease, red blood cells become rigid and deform into a crescent (sickle) shape. Complications related to SCD occur because the deformed cells block critical blood flow to specific organs. They include health issues such as stroke, acute chest syndrome (a condition that lowers the level of oxygen in the blood), organ damage, other disabilities, and in some cases premature death, according to the American Society of Hematology. The estimated life expectancy for those with SCD in the U.S. is more than 20 years shorter than the average life expectancy, according to the CDC. Many people with SCD do not receive the recommended healthcare screenings and treatments.
2023
Sickle cell disease is a lifelong, inherited illness. In order for you or your child to inherit sickle cell disease, both parents must have either sickle cell disease (two sickle cell genes) or sickle cell trait (one sickle cell gene). A bone marrow transplant was the only cure for sickle cell disease until 2023; however in December of that year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved two new therapies to treat the disease. One treatment approach works by adding a new gene to a patient’s body, and the other makes changes to a gene that is already in the body to address SCD, according to the National Institute of Health’s Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH).
1 in 13
About 1 in 13 Black or African American babies are born with sickle cell trait. Many people who come from Hispanic, Southern European, Middle Eastern, or Asian Indian backgrounds also have sickle cell disease.