Sickle Cell Disease in Infancy and Childhood

Dear Colleagues,

Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited monogeneic blood disorders that affect children throughout their entire lifespan and lead to multiple morbidities and a reduced life expectancy. This disease has protean manifestations and can affect almost every organ system. Curative therapies, such as allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, and more recently, gene therapy (currently in clinical trials), are expensive and not accessible to most patients afflicted with this devastating disease. The early diagnosis of sickle cell disease in newborns and preventative health care strategies have led to a decrease in the morbidity and mortality of children, at least in the developed world. However, children born with sickle cell disease in the developing world, where the majority of these children still reside, continue to experience premature mortality. Early mortality is most commonly caused by infections and other complications of this disease. With widespread human migration, sickle cell disease is now prevalant globally, but most patients live in under-resourced areas of Africa, Latin America, Middle East and India, where there is an urgent need for effective management strategies. Advancements made in the prevention and treatment of life-threatening infections, safe and effective vaccines, blood transfusion practices and disease-modifying therapies, such as Hydroxyurea, and more recently, L-Glutamine, Crizanilizumab and Voxelotor, are enabling the introduction of new therapies to this long-neglected population.

This Special Issue is focused on collecting original articles, reviews and case reports. We are encouraging you to submit manuscripts to share your findings and experience and to help us gather all major developments in the diagnosis and treatment of sickle cell disease in this Special Issue.

Dr. Shipra Kaicker
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sickle cell disease
• complications
• treatment
• disease-modifying therapies
• curative therapies