(1) Supportive management |
Management intended to maintain the essential requirements for good health such as balanced diet, sleep, hydration, and folic acid |
|
(2) Symptomatic management |
Management targeted to alleviate the symptoms of the disease as they occur. These include blood transfusion for symptomatic anemia, analgesics for pain, and antibiotics for infections |
|
(3) Preventative management |
Approaches to prevent the occurrence of complications of the disease. These include things like vaccination, avoidance of stressful situations, Hb F induction with hydroxyurea or other agents, and transfusion to prevent the recurrence of stroke |
|
(4) Abortive management |
Major purpose of this approach is to abort painful crisis thus preventing them from getting worse or precipitating other complication. The only promising abortive approach has been nitric oxide |
|
(5) Curative therapy |
This is the ultimate goal of all inherited disorders. This has already been achieved in SCD by stem cell transplantation. Gene therapy is another challenging goal |