All you need to know about sickle-cell disease
A new study sheds light on how sickle-cell disease occurs when deformed red blood cells clump together, blocking tiny blood vessels and causing severe pain and swelling in the affected body parts. Sickle-cell disease , also known as sickle-cell anemia, is a group of disorders that lead to deformation and break down of red blood cells. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analysed blood from patients with sickle-cell disease and revealed the process of cell clumping. Known as vaso-occlusive pain crises, the findings represent a step towards being able to predict when such a crisis might occur. "These painful crises are very much unpredictable. In a sense, we understand why they happen, but we don't have a good way to predict them yet," said Ming Dao, a principal researcher and one of the senior authors of the study. The researchers found that these painful events are most likely to be produced by immature red blood cells, cal