Sickle Cell: 10 Things Every EP Should Know about SCD
Article by Jeffrey Glassberg on January 27,2012
"Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder of hemoglobin that affects nearly 100,000 Americans. Since its discovery 101 years ago, SCD has fallen largely under the academic jurisdiction of hematology. Today, a small group of clinicians/researchers/scientists (mostly hematologists) works to add to the body of sickle cell literature (a pubmed search for “sickle cell” returns less than 20,000 articles, compared to 120,000 for asthma and over 150,000 for CHF). Meanwhile outside of the ivory tower, SCD falls largely under the clinical jurisdiction of emergency medicine. SCD is marked by recurrent acute events (pain, stroke, acute chest syndrome), many of which result in an ED visit. While evidence to guide the emergency care of SCD patients is limited, there are several important points we can glean from the available literature. As one of very few emergency physicians with an interest in SCD, I’ve compiled a list of ten things I think every emergency practitioner should know."
http://www.epmonthly.com/cme/current-issue/sickle-cell-10-things-every-ep-should-know-about-scd-/1/
