Pain common with sickle cell disease

Jan 16, 2008

Study sickle cell disease patients are in pain more often than previously reported.

Pain is "the rule rather than exception" among adults with sickle cell disease, researchers report.

Sickle cell disease is an inherited condition in which certain red blood cells become crescent-shaped (sickled). That makes it hard for those cells to pass through narrow blood vessels, which deprives tissue of oxygen and causes pain.

Experts studied 232 people age 16 and older (average age: 32) with sickle cell disease.

• 29% of the patients reported sickle cell pain nearly every day.


• 54% reported pain on more than half of the days.


• Only 14% rarely reported pain.


• Average pain intensity was in the middle of the study's pain scale.