This Week in Sickle Cell News November 16th to the 23rd

By Sean Marshall

There were an abundance of medical updates in the media world this week and one good piece of news involved the children.

Children with sickle cell disease according to health.usnews.com have much to celebrate. “A clinical trial of hydroxyurea therapy for children with sickle cell disease has been halted a year early.” This is all due to the results showing that it is a safe and effective way to manage sickle cell disease, specifically by reducing the risk of stroke.

The drug itself is put in place to “reduce the number of abnormally shaped red blood cells.” By doing this the risk for stoke significantly drops. The test results proved the drug was effective when researchers compared “monthly blood transfusions with daily hydroxyurea pills among children with sickle cell.”

What makes this important, besides the life saving properties is that the research was conducted “at 25 medical centers in the United States and Canada.” This shows commitment from all of North America to combat sickle cell disease. This proves that there are many individuals suffering from sickle cell and North American institutions are finally acting.

Lastly the article explained that "this critical research finding opens the door to more treatment options for clinicians trying to prevent strokes in children living with the sickle cell disease,"

If you want more information go to the link here: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2014/11/21/sickle-cell-anemia-treatment-so-successful-in-kids-that-trial-is-halted

In other medical news a study about zinc showed it can benefit those who suffer from sickle cell anemia. The article found on yourhealthmag.com it mainly deals with zinc and why it's important to humans but there was a small section highlighting recent benefits it can have on those suffering from sickle cell anemia.

It was explained that zinc "can benefit patients with sickle cell anemia who suffer from delayed growth and development.” It continued on by explaining about a study led by Dr. Babette S. Zemel of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The study showed “that children with sickle cell anemia experience increased growth and development compared to a group not given zinc supplements.” Lastly the article mentioned there is also speculation that “sickle cell anemia is associated with zinc deficiency, according to livestrong.com.”

There really isn't much more about sickle cell in the article but if you would like to learn more about zinc click the link here: http://www.youthhealthmag.com/articles/2408/20141117/zinc-benefits-in-growth-and-development-can-be-helped-by-this-mineral.htm

The last mentionable medical news piece comes from streetinsider.com. This article covered the announcement that Mast Therapeutics, Inc. a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, t announced that it will be presenting data from an ex vivostudy ,its lead product candidate, at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) taking place December 6 – 9, 2014 in San Francisco, California.

It was explained that their new program is all about the "Pro-coagulant Actions of Circulating Microparticles in Sickle Cell Anemia.” The concept will be presented as part of the Oral and Poster Abstracts Program on Sunday December 7, 2014 in Session 321: Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolytic Factors.

The study explained that the “supplementation of MST-188 to blood samples collected from healthy normal individuals, sickle cell anemia (SCA) patients and sepsis associated coagulopathy (SAC) patients resulted in significant decrease in thrombin generation and marked decrease of functioning micro particles.”

Basically what this all means is that the study in question has figured out why and how individual with sickle cell go though pain on a micro-biological level and the next step will be the production of processes, mainly drug based, to stop this pain from continuing.

If you want to know more click here: http://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Mast+Therapeutics,+Inc.+(MSTX)+to+Present+MST-188+Data+at+ASH/10020460.html
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