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Award-Winning Health Journalism

Tag: Sickle Cell Disease

UI Health Helps Teens Take Charge of Their Sickle Cell Disease

Caption: Peer patient advocates Ronisha Edwards-Elliott (left) and Ryan Cooper (right) pose with Paige Reilly, UIC professor of pediatric hematology-oncology in the College of Medicine. The three work at the S.T.A.R. Clinic, guiding adolescents with sickle cell disease.

Ryan Cooper knows firsthand how tough it is to be a teenager with sickle cell disease, a genetic blood disorder that can cause intense pain and organ damage. “Adolescence is already hard enough, and then you are adding a layer of having a chronic illness on top of it,” Cooper says. For more than 15 […]

Promise Out of Reach

Illustration of troubled man with an empty buggy bank without money. Sickle cell disease new gene therapy treatment and lack of affordability concept.

New therapies revolutionize sickle cell treatment, but who can afford the price tag?   Fact checked by Shannon Sparks   When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two milestone treatments for sickle cell disease at the end of 2023, the community rejoiced.  As a potential one-time therapy, the treatments might put an end to […]

A Dire Diagnosis

Martha Strong and her son, Marrion, during a hospital visit to La Rabida Children’s Hospital.

But advancements give new hope for children with sickle cell disease Martha Strong’s son Marrion came out screaming.  “He was actually having his very first pain crisis as he was being pushed out of me,” Strong says. What she didn’t know then, but would learn very soon, was that Marrion had sickle cell disease, a […]