Category Archives: Sickle cell disease

Sickle cell patients to have quicker and more accessible treatment in England

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Government announces £9m funding to make specialist blood machines more widely available across NHS

People living with sickle cell disease in England are to benefit from quicker and more accessible treatment due to a £9m investment, the government has announced.

Apheresis services, which are a type of treatment that removes harmful components from a patient’s blood, are to improve across England through the funding of more specialist treatment centres. The funding will ensure the wider availability of machines that remove a patient’s sickled red blood cells and replace them with healthy donor cells.

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Nottinghamshire families left unaware of babies’ blood test results in second NHS error

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About 300 families may not have been told whether children carry trait for genetic disorders such as sickle cell disease

Hundreds of families in Nottinghamshire have potentially been left unaware of whether their babies may be carriers of certain genetic blood disorders, the second such NHS error to come to light since the start of this year.

About 300 families whose children were born between 2004 and September 2024 in Bassetlaw and mid-Nottinghamshire were identified by the NHS as being affected.

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UK medicines regulator approves gene therapy for two blood disorders

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MHRA authorises uses of Casgevy as a potential cure for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia

The UK’s medicines regulator has authorised the use of a world-first gene therapy as a potential cure for two inherited blood disorders.

The treatment, Casgevy, for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, is the first to be licensed that uses the gene-editing tool known as Crispr, whose inventors were awarded the Nobel prize in 2020.

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