Sickle cell disease: A global health concern; pathophysiology, epidemiology and advances in point of care diagnostics

Abstract

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the most critical “hemoglobinopathy” worldwide in terms of frequency, and social impact. Recently, it is recognized as global health concern by World Health Organization (WHO). SCD affects approximately 5% of the world population with a various estimate in different continents. Deaths from SCD are evitable by cost effective diagnosis and efficient health interventions for management. Our comprehensive review focuses mainly on the prevalence of SCD, its associated clinical features including crisis, pulmonary pathobiology, muscular, neurological, hepatobiliary and ophthalmological complications along with frequent sepsis and priapism. Further, the present scenario of SCD diagnosis and confirmation requires sophisticated equipment, reagents and adequately trained laboratory persons, also there is unmet requirement for advance methods, to diagnose and monitor SCD that are both inexpensive and accessible. As new diagnostic methods are delayed in clinical trials and more are in pipeline, the purpose of this review is also provides an overview on emerging point of care (POC) techniques offering hope for detection and management of this unfortunate disease.