ABSTRACT

Objectives:  To review the history of newborn screening for sickle cell disease with especial reference to Jamaica.

Methods: A summary of the history, the development of associated laboratory technology and the implementation of newborn screening for sickle cell disease in Jamaica.

 ABSTRACT

Objectives: To describe the incidence, pattern, and outcome of priapism in homozygous sickle cell (SS) disease.

Methods: Regular review, for periods up to 40 years was done, of all 162 males with SS disease detected during the screening of 100 000 consecutive non-operative deliveries at the main government maternity hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, between June 1973 and December 1981.

ABSTRACT

Objectives: To raise awareness of significant iron deficiency anaemia occurring in Jamaican secondary school students.

Methods: Haematological screening of students in the fifth and sixth forms of 14 secondary schools in the parishes of Manchester and Clarendon, Jamaica, was done. Samples were subject to haemoglobin electrophoresis, examination of haematological indices, and haemoglobin, alpha 2 (HbA₂₎ levels where indicated.

ABSTRACT

Objective: To assess pregnancy weight gain and newborn anthropometry in mothers with homozygous sickle cell (SS) disease and normal controls.

ABSTRACT

Objective: To compare the haematological and clinical features of homozygous sickle cell (SS) disease in Bantu and Benin haplotypes in a cross-sectional study of 115 Ugandan patients attending the Sickle Cell Clinic at Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda, with 311 patients in the Jamaican Cohort Study.

Methods: This involved the comparison of clinical features and haematology with special reference to genetic determinants of severity including fetal haemoglobin levels, beta-globin haplotype, and alpha thalassaemia status.