By NANCY RENE

I was lucky I was home today, Zumba had gotten too crazy, and I tuned in to a webinar hosted by the Pacific Sickle Cell Regional Collaborative (PSCRC).

This program featured drugs that are being developed by several major pharmaceutical companies: Vepaloxamer by Mast therapeutics, GBT 440 from Global Blood Therapeutics, L’Glutamine from Emmaus, and Rivipansel from Pfizer. I’m certainly not qualified to describe how these drugs work, but it seems like the goal is reduce the amount of sickling in the blood.

For me this was a lightbulb moment. I had always thought that the only choices for those with sickle cell were a risky bone marrow transplant or chronic transfusions. If these drugs prove effective, there may be a new approach to sickle cell treatment, one that actually reduces sickling and therefore prevents all the damage and pain that occurs.

One of the very best websites on sickle cell disease is www.casicklecell.org. Check them out. You will get standard of care guidelines, data collection, and a place to sign up for the quarterly webinar.