Prevention of stroke in sickle cell anemia.

The risk of stroke for a child with SCD is many times greater than that of a healthy child without SCD or heart disease. There is a technique that allows the identification of the children with SCD who have high risk even within this relatively high-risk group. And there is a highly effective preventive treatment. While this would on the surface appear to be a straightforward medical decision, it is not. One must weigh the benefits of preventing permanent brain damage against the risks of infection from transfused blood, iron overload, which is the result of the frequent transfusions, and rare transfusion reactions.