This Week in Sickle Cell News September 7th to the 13th

By Sean Marshall

A new machine should help those with  sickle cell sufferers in the North Atlantic. There is even better news if you're near  Bermuda. The Bermuda Hospitals Board announced that they have “has unveiled a new machine to vastly improve its service for sickle-cell patients.”

The machine titled The Spectra Optia therapeutic apheresis machine is designed to extract and filter blood. In a more in depth description the machine when operating at maximum capacity should “act as a sort of cell exchange, it can extract red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets or plasma and simultaneously replace the removed components with the required product when necessary.”

This means the machine should do away with constant blood transfusions many who suffer from sickle cell have to go through sometime on a daily basis. There would only be a smaller amount of transfusions from the Spectra Optia instead. Often allowing a patient to go eight weeks without a visit to the hospital. The machine also “drastically reduces the amount of time a patient has to undergo transfusion.

The original article with extra information can be found at the link below: http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20150909/NEWS/150909721

Good news for those who have sickle cell in Oklahoma Sam and Pat Burns are expanding sickle cell anemia treatment centers. It was explaining that the state of Oklahoma actually “does not have a 24-hour comprehensive acute-care sickle cell anemia center for adults.” So The Burns has stepped in with comprehensive plans on expanding and creating many sickle cell centers in Oklahoma for the treatment of sickle cell. There will be more details in the future when work has began.

The brief article can be found here, however you must make an account to access further information. http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/sam-and-pat-burns-expanding-sickle-cell-anemia-centers-in/article_cb15823a-7445-5fe1-9220-dd642b7b6698.html

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