Red Blood Cell - IMProving trAnsfusions for Chronically Transfused Recipients

Sickle cell disease (SCD) and thalassemia are genetic disorders inducing anemia of differing pathophysiology. A primary therapy for preventing certain SCD complications (e.g., stroke) and for thalassemia major is regular red blood cell (RBC) transfusion, coupled with iron chelation to prevent the complications of transfusion-induced iron overload. For patients with pediatric hematology-oncology diagnoses with chemotherapy-induced aplasia, RBC transfusion is also common, but the degree of transfusion-induced iron overload and its implications for these patients is incompletely understood. Because iron-related tissue toxicity is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in regularly transfused patients, developing strategies to minimize iron loading and iron toxicity is a key objective of this proposal (study Aim #2), stemming from the objective to optimize RBC unit characteristics that patients with SCD and thalassemia receive beyond RBC phenotype matching for Rh C, E and K antigens (study Aim #1). The study will enroll patients with SCD, thalassemia or pediatric oncologic diagnoses receiving eligible transfusion at 6 hospital sites in the United States, as well as patients with SCD at 5 hemocenters in Brazil.