Study Finds Potential Marker To Identify Sickle Cell Patients at High Risk of Complications Researchers studying sickle cell disease have found that an enzyme, which can be measured by a simple blood test, may help determine whether a patient has a high risk of developing certain serious complications associated with the disease.
The study, led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), will be published in the March 15, 2006 issue of Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology.
Researchers say the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) appears to hold promise in patients with sickle cell disease as a marker for risk of pulmonary hypertension and other complications, including early death. Pulmonary hypertension — abnormally high blood pressure in the lungs — is common in sickle cell disease.
“Our findings suggest that patients with sickle cell disease and high LDH levels should have especially careful monitoring for pulmonary hypertension, a life-threatening complication,” says Gregory Kato, M.D., the lead author of the study. Kato is a clinician in the NIH Clinical Center Department of Critical Care Medicine and director of the Sickle Cell Vascular Disease Unit in the NHLBI Vascular Medicine Branch.
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