Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, cilt.9, sa.6, ss.11950-11957, 2016 (SCI-Expanded)
Background: Sickle cell diseases (SCDs) cause an accelerated atherosclerotic process in whole body. We tried to understand whether or not there is an additional venous involvement in the SCDs. Methods: As one of the significant endpoints of the SCDs, cases with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and without were collected into the two groups. Results: The study included 427 patients (220 males). There were 71 patients (16.6%) with COPD. Mean age of patients was significantly higher in the COPD group (32.8 versus 29.8 years, P=0.005). The male ratio was significantly higher in the COPD group, too (78.8% versus 46.0%, P<0.001). Smoking (35.2% versus 11.2%, P<0.001) and alcohol (7.0% versus 1.9%, P<0.01) were also higher among the COPD cases. Beside these, priapism (14.0% versus 2.8%, P<0.001), cirrhosis (8.4% versus 3.3%, P<0.05), leg ulcers (23.9% versus 12.0%, P<0.01), digital clubbing (25.3% versus 6.7%, P<0.001), coronary heart disease (23.9% versus 13.7%, P<0.05), chronic renal disease (15.4% versus 7.0%, P<0.01), and stroke (16.9% versus 8.1%, P<0.01) were all higher among the COPD cases. Although deep venous thrombosis and/or varices and/or telangiectasias of the lower limbs were also higher among them, the difference was nonsignificant (11.2% versus 5.0%, P>0.05) probably due to small sample size of the COPD group. Conclusion: SCDs are chronic catastrophic processes on vascular endothelium particularly at the capillary level, and terminate with accelerated atherosclerosis induced end-organ failures in early years of life. Beside the accelerated atherosclerotic process, venous involvement may also be common in the SCDs.