Life Expectancy of Someone With Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle cell disease is a painful, genetic disorder that reduces a person's life expectancy. In sickle cell disease, hemoglobin, a protein inside red blood cells that carries oxygen, causes the red blood cells to be sickle shaped instead of smooth and round. These misshapen red blood cells do not live as long as healthy ones and their rapid death leads to anemia. They also stick and form clumps in blood vessels leading to a number of complications.

Types

• The University of Maryland Medical Center delineates five variations of sickle cell disease as being the most common. With sickle cell trait a person is only a carrier of the gene and does not display symptoms. Sickle cell anemia, or HbSS, is the most common and most severe form with the shortest life expectancy. Sickle cell - hemoglobin C disease, sickle cell-hemoglobin E disease, and sickle cell-beta-thalassemia all cause more moderate symptoms of the disease.

Symptoms

• Symptoms of sickle cell disease include anemia, acute pain, fatigue, fever and jaundice.

Diagnosis

• Today most states test for sickle cell disease as part of their standard newborn blood screens. Physicians can use several tests to diagnose sickle cell disease including a CBC (complete blood count), and a sickle cell test in which blood cells are examined under a microscope to look at their shape.

Treatment

• Sickle cell disease currently cannot be cured and treatment is designed to minimize pain and crises and to ward off infections.

Life Expectancy for Sickle Cell Anemia

• The life expectancy of a person with type HbSS sickle cell anemia is forty-two years for men and forty-eight years for women according to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Life Expectancy Variations

• Patients with sickle cell-hemoglobin C disease have a life expectancy of 60 years for men and 68 years for women. People with sickle cell trait have a normal life expectancy.