"Is There a Cure?"

Currently, there is not a blanket cure available to every single man, woman, and child who lives with Sickle Cell. However, for those who meet the requirements, there is an 85% cure rate for patients that have a bone marrow transplant from a direct sibling who doesn’t have Sickle Cell. A direct sibling means, a brother or sister who has the same mom and dad as you. They can‘t be half-brothers or sisters.

Bone marrow is basically the red blood cell factory of the body. It’s the soft chewy center of the bone where red blood cells are made (I was joking about the chewy part). When a transplant occurs, a certain amount of stem cells—which are immature cells—are withdrawn from the bone marrow of a healthy donor; these cells are usually taken from the hip or harvested from the donor’s blood. . The patient receiving the donor stem cells does so intravenously, much like a blood transfusion. If it’s successful, the patient’s bone marrow essentially resets, allowing their body to produce healthy red blood cells. Simply stated, the factory where the Sickle Cell patient’s bloods cells are produced gets a new operating system. This is an oversimplification of a very complex medical procedure, but you get the idea.

Though there is an 85% cure rate in bone marrow transplant treatment in Sickle Cell patients, there is a 5% chance that it can result in the death of the patient. The remaining 10% survive without the treatment being successful.  Due to the risks involved, there are many requirements for the procedure. The patient cannot have any damage to their major organs; they must be under seventeen years old; live with the more severe form of Sickle Cell; and they must have a sibling able to donate bone marrow. All of these requirements make bone marrow transplant a possibility for a very small percentage of patients.

In recent years, there have been successful bone marrow transplants from donors that were not at all related to the Sickle Cell patient. Currently advancements are being made in bone marrow transplants that will make the procedure available to adults as well as youth. Additional research with stem cells is also opening doors to potential treatments and cures.

Dr. Broyles, the founder of the Sickle Cell Cure Foundation Inc., is a researcher whose making very exciting progress toward an inexpensive non-surgical cure for all Sickle Cell patients through what he calls gene regulation therapy. By injecting a protein into the bloodstream, Dr. Broyles believes his treatment will turn off the Sickle Cell gene and turn on the fetal hemoglobin gene; the gene that protects infants and fetuses in their mother’s womb from suffering the affects of Sickle Cell. The foundation is working towards having clinical trials and expect the treatment to be available in the near future. More information about this can be found on his website at www.sicklecellcurefoundation.org.

Personally, I’m very hopeful about future developments toward curing Sickle Cell Disease. Though limited, there is a cure today. This was but dream only thirty years ago. Living with the belief that a cure for all will come in our lifetime, is an important one to have. Maintain that hope.