Sickle Cell Disease for Health Professionals

“Look at that! Life!” said Deidra Flowers-Williams, a sickle cell disease patient, as she held up a tube with stem cells donated by her sister, Tanisha Flowers. It was just minutes before doctors at the NIH Clinical Center would use the cells – extracted from her sister’s bone marrow – for a transplant they hoped would cure the devastating blood disease the 40-year-old had endured most of her life. So, Flowers-Williams’ elation was understandable — not simply because of the promise, she said, of “a new chapter in my life, free of the chronic pain, the narcotics, the constant ER visits,” but...