Rate of Sickling of Red Cells during Deoxygenation of Blood from Persons with Various Sickling Disorders.

By SAMUEL CIIARAcIIE AND C. LOCKARD CONLEY S ICKLED ERYTHROCYTES are rapidly removed for the circulation, an occurrence that accounts for the hemolytic aspects of sickle cell disease.’ Anemia is a usual result but is often asymptomatic and is not the principal cause of the high morbidity and reduced life span of affected persons. Many of the clinical manifestations of sicklemia have been attributed to the increased blood viscosity and impaired blood flow caused by deformation of deoxygenated erythrocytes.27 Red cells of asymptomatic persons with sickle cell trait ( A-S ) require a lower partial pressure of oxygen for production of sickling than do red cells of patients with sickle cell anemia;589 presumably physiologic oxygen tensions are not sufficiently low to cause intravascular sickling of red cells of A-S heterozygotes. When person’s with sickle cell trait are exposed to conditions in which there is regional or general hypoxia,