Sickle Cell Trait, Disease Linked With Faster Kidney Function Decline in African American Patients

Sickle-cell trait (SCT) and disease (SCD) among African American patients were associated with a faster kidney function decline, with SCD contributing to a more rapid decline, according to study findings published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.1 According to the CDC, SCD affects approximately 100,000 Americans and is most common in African-Americans (1 out of every 365 births) and Hispanic-Americans (1 out of every 16,300 births). SCT, characterized by 1 copy of the altered hemoglobin gene compared with SCD’s 2 copies, additionally is found most prominently in African-Americans, affecting up to 8% to 10% of the population. As study authors note, prior studies have described the association between sickle hemoglobin and chronic kidney disease (CKD), but there is limited understanding of the effect of sickle hemoglobin on the decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) over time compared with a population with no sickle hemoglobin. eGFR, a marker of disease severity and associated comorbid conditions, has been shown to be an accurate predictor of prognosis of renal failure in patients with type 2 diabetes, indicating its potential screening importance among patients with SCD/SCT. Researchers conducted a multicenter, observational study using registry data collected from January 2005 to June 2018 from adult black patients with SCT (n = 1251) or SCD (n = 230), distinguished as exposures, and reference patients with normal hemoglobin phenotype status (n = 8729). Abstract source