Sickle Cell Disease (Anemia) is an autosomal recessive disease caused by a mutation in hemoglobin. Rather than the common disc shape of red blood cells, this disease causes the cells to form in a crescent shape, leaving them fragile and apt to break or clot in small blood vessels, thereby slowing or blocking blood flow. This prevents oxygen from circulating the body properly. As with all autosomal recessive genes, both parents must be carriers in order for their offspring to get the disease. While “many people erroneously think that it is limited to African-Americans,” it is also common amongst people whose ancestors came from South America, Cuba, Central America, Saudi Arabia, India, and Mediterranean countries such as Turkey, Greece and
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An individual who does not possess the gene can never develop sickle cell anemia even through extended exposure to others with this disease. Also, direct contact with the blood of a sickle cell patient will never cause the disease to be transmitted. Similarly, if even one parent does not possess the trait, there is no risk that the child will develop the disease. The child, however, will become a carrier, and if he were to mate with another carrier, there is a possibility that the third generation will develop sickle cell anemia, as “Individuals with the sickle cell trait generally have no symptoms, but they can pass the gene on to their children.” This disease is non-gender specific, and cannot be developed later in life. A person must be born with the disease in order to have it.
Pathophysiology is a combination of the study of pathology, which describes conditions observed during the disease state, and physiology, which describes the mechanisms operating within the organism. In sickle cell anemia, a person’s genetic code instructs the body to manufacture hemoglobin which is not disc-like, but rather, abnormal in shape. This is the pathology of sickle cell anemia. The affected hemoglobin is called Hemoglobin S, and it is a protein in the red blood cells that distributes oxygen throughout the
An individual who does not possess the gene can never develop sickle cell anemia even through extended exposure to others with this disease. Also, direct contact with the blood of a sickle cell patient will never cause the disease to be transmitted. Similarly, if even one parent does not possess the trait, there is no risk that the child will develop the disease. The child, however, will become a carrier, and if he were to mate with another carrier, there is a possibility that the third generation will develop sickle cell anemia, as “Individuals with the sickle cell trait generally have no symptoms, but they can pass the gene on to their children.” This disease is non-gender specific, and cannot be developed later in life. A person must be born with the disease in order to have it.
Pathophysiology is a combination of the study of pathology, which describes conditions observed during the disease state, and physiology, which describes the mechanisms operating within the organism. In sickle cell anemia, a person’s genetic code instructs the body to manufacture hemoglobin which is not disc-like, but rather, abnormal in shape. This is the pathology of sickle cell anemia. The affected hemoglobin is called Hemoglobin S, and it is a protein in the red blood cells that distributes oxygen throughout the