DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i03.042

Pages: 920-925

Sickle-cell disease (SCD), also known as sickle-cell anemia (SCA), is a hereditary blood disorder, caused by an abnormality in the oxygen-carrying protein hemoglobin found in red blood cells. This leads to a propensity for the cells to assume an abnormal, rigid, sickle-like shape under certain circumstances. Sickle-cell disease is associated with a number of acute and chronic health problems, such as severe infections, attacks of severe pain ("sickle-cell crisis"), stroke, and an increased risk of death. The study was aimed to evaluate the abdominal organs in children with sickle cell anemia using ultrasonography. This was cross sectional descriptive study; conducted in a total of 103 patients with sickle cell anemia, their age was range 10 months -16 years (mean age 6.1 years ± 4.3 SD), in different hospital in Khartoum from January - August 2016. All patients scanned by ultrasound according to international guidance and protocol, their ultrasound findings and history was recorded in data collection sheet and these data was analyzed by Statistical package of social sciences program version 15. The commonest transabdominal ultrasound finding in this study was splenic abnormality in 74 (71.9%) flowed by hepatomegaly in 53 (51.5%) patient, gallbladder abnormality in 22 patients (21.3%), and enlarged kidneys in 23 patients (22.3%). There was positive relation between spleen size and the duration of disease, in early stage of disease the spleen is enlarge and after that become small with time until disappear in adulthood. This study provides that ultrasound have excellent role in detected abdominal abnormality in sickle cell anemia patients and to follow the complications of disease. The study recommended that, ultrasound should be used as routine exam to follow the stages of disease because it is noninvasive and repeatable.