A Pilot Study of Fecal Microbiome and Neutrophil Cellular Adhesion Molecules in Patients With Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)

Patients with sickle cell disease often develop painful crisis without any obvious reasons. Some patients are more likely to develop this complication than others. It is now clear that painful crisis only occurs when sickled red blood cells stick to white blood cells that have been activated, usually by inflammation or infections. A recent study in mice with sickle cell disease showed that the use of long term antibiotics could reduce the number of activated white blood cells and reduce death of the mice during sickle cell crisis. The investigators believe that sickle cell patients who develop frequent painful crisis may have a different pattern of bacteria in their intestine when compared to those whose painful crisis occurs infrequently. In this study, the investigators propose to study sickle cell subject's blood to determine how many activated white blood cells he/she have. The investigators will also examine his/her stool to compare the bacteria in his/her stool to those other sickle cell patients. The investigators will then investigate whether or not the results from the blood and stool tests correlate with how frequently the patient develops painful crisis. The investigators will examine the patients' medical records to find out how many times they have been admitted to the hospital for sickle cell crisis in the last 12 months. The investigators will also obtain information on the following: their age, their sex, whether they are taking hydroxyurea or Penicillin, when they last had a transfusion or exchange transfusion therapy and painful crisis needing hospital admission, whether they have received any antibiotics (other than Penicillin) in the last 4 weeks, and whether they are experiencing a painful crisis at the time that they enter the study. The investigators will obtain, from their previous laboratory results, their levels of hemoglobin F and markers of inflammation. The investigators will check their hemoglobin F level if they have not already had