New Hope for Children with Sickle Cell Disease

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (ALSAC)
Thursday, 2 August 2001

Children with sickle cell disease are getting new hope from an old therapy.

(Memphis, Tennessee, August 2, 2001) Hydroxyurea is a chemotherapy drug that has been used for more than 30 years to treat certain types of cancer. Now researchers have discovered that treating sickle cell patients with hydroxyurea is also effective in preventing the excruciating pain crises associated with sickle cell disease.

Although most research on hydroxyurea in patients with sickle cell disease has been focused on adults and older children, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is now leading a study that looks at the promise of treating very young children, between the ages of 6 months and 2 years, with hydroxyurea. Researchers hope to prove that in addition to reducing pain, the drug may prevent some of the devastating organ damage that occurs as a result of sickle cell disease.

Damage to the liver, brain and other organs begins at a very early age in children with sickle cell disease. For example, by the age of five, most children with sickle cell disease no longer have functioning spleens.

More than 70,000 Americans have sickle cell disease. One of the most common genetic diseases, sickle cell disease afflicts one in every 350 African American children.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tennessee, was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas. The hospital is an internationally recognized biomedical research center dedicated to finding cures for catastrophic diseases of childhood. The hospital's work is supported through funds raised by the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC). ALSAC covers all costs not covered by insurance for medical treatment rendered at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Families without insurance are never asked to pay.

For more information, or to contact St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (ALSAC), see their website at: www.stjude.org