Acute Chest Syndrome Does Not Have a Chronic Inflammatory Background in Sickle Cell Diseases

Results: The study included 411 patients (199 females). As one of the significant endpoints of SCDs, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and without were collected into two groups. There were 60 patients (14.5%) with COPD. Mean age (33.0 versus 29.5 years, P=0.005) and male ratio (80.0% versus 46.7%, P<0.001) were higher in the COPD group. Smoking (36.6% versus 9.9%, P<0.001) and alcohol (3.3% versus 0.8%, P<0.05) were also higher among the COPD cases. Transfused red blood cell units in their lives (69.1 versus 32.9, P=0.001), priapism (10.0% versus 1.9%, P<0.001), leg ulcers (26.6% versus 11.6%, P<0.001), digital clubbing (25.0% versus 7.1%, P<0.001), coronary heart disease (26.6% versus 13.1%, P<0.01), chronic renal disease (16.6% versus 7.1%, P<0.01), and stroke (20.0% versus 7.9%, P<0.001) were all higher among the COPD cases, too. Interestingly, against the higher rates of the above problems in the COPD group, incidence of ACS was even lower among them, nonsignificantly (1.6% versus 3.9%, P>0.05).