Published
The life span of an RBC is about 80 to 120 days. The new blood doesn't sickle, the RBCs just die off and are absorbed. That's why transfusions aren't a permanent fix. The life cycle of a sickle cell RBC is much shorter - only 8 to 14 days. So new sickle RBCs are being produced at a faster rate and will eventually dominate over the normal RBCs from a transfusion. Replacing blood serves to fix severe anemia and decrease viscosity of the blood. However you want to keep someone with sickle cell disease anemic, with a Hgb of about 7-9 - trying to increase Hgb will just result in more sickle cells.
treasurel
2 Posts
Does anyone know if the RBCs from a blood tranfusion to sickle cell patients start sickling just like the patient's own RBC's once in the bloodstream?