P-063: NUTRITIONAL AND PUBERTAL PROFILE OF CHILDREN WITH MAJOR SICKLE CELL DISEASE ADMITTED AT THE MEDICAL AND HEALTH COUNCIL CENTER OF KIPÉ, CONAKRY-2018

Abstract

Purpose: A child’s growth reflects it nutritional and pubertal status and it is proven that nutrition is a factor affecting pubertal development. Sickle cell patients often have slowed growth and delayed pubertal development. This work aims to assess the nutritional and/or pubertal profile in children with sickle cell diseases (SS) admitted at the CEMECO center. Materials and methods: This was a cross-sectional study and study participant under 16 years were randomly selected from the health center database having about 6497 cases and enrolled in the study.The participants were divides into two groups based on the electrophoresis of hemoglobin: Sickle cell disease including 103 cases of SS (homozygote) and 18 cases of SC, S, β-Thalassemia and SE (heterozygous). While the group of non-sickle cell participants includes 87 (AA and AS) Results: We included 208 children among them121 sickle cell disease patients and 87 non sickle cell diseasechildren. with a sex ratio M/F was about1.02. The meanage of sickle cell patients was 8.7±4.4 years while that of non-sickle cell patients was 9.5 ± years. The family income evaluated according to the MICS, was similar between the two groups (P= 0.123). Evaluation of nutritional status using the weight / height score-z, revealed that in children under five years of age with sickle cell patients, was lower than that of non-sickle cell patients(p=). However, the difference was not significative (P = 0.155). The height/age ratio express as Z score showed a significative difference between sickle cell patients (1.1 Z score)while non-sickle cell patients (P =0.000). Underweight evaluated by weight/age z-score showed that the in-sickle cell patients were -0.91 and -0.12 in non-sickle cell patients (P=0.014). However, the BMI evaluation did not show any significant difference between sickle and non-sickle cell patients P=0.188. The proportion of delayed puberty in sickle cell patients were (4.8%) compared to 6.3% in non-in sickle cell patients. puberty. Uni-variate analysis showed an association between sickle cell disease and testicular development (P=0.046). Conclusion: The height/age ratio expressed as Z score result is similar to those found by Sharon E. Cox et al. in Tanzania in 2011. Contrary to the report by Al Saqladi et al, a difference was found in the weight/age z-score between the body mass index in control children compared to sickle cell children. These results are different from those found by Shongo et al. in 2015 that were statistically significant with a P >0.05 (21). This difference may be justified by the fact that our sample was larger than theirs. In some, this study highlighted growth retardation and slowed testicular development in children with sickle cell disease. The authors do not declare any conflict of interest