Sickle Cell Disease Complications and BMI Percentiles of Pediatric Patients

BMI percentile is a good index of nutritional status among pediatric patients. Yet there is a dearth of information about the relationship between this important anthropometric parameter and specific severity indices among pediatric patients. The study is designed to explore the possibility of such a relationship.

Methods: Pediatric study participants were divided into test [HbSS, HbSC] and control [HbAA] groups. The questionnaire was administered to obtain information on age, gender, and clinical features of the disease [pain frequency, leg ulcer, priapism]. The anthropometry indices were determined. BMI as well as BMI percentiles were calculated. Data were summarized using relative frequency, mean, and standard deviation while analysis of variance, LSD post hoc tests and Chi‑squared tests were used for inferential statistics. Significant levels were set with P < 0.05.

Results: There were significant differences in the body weight, height and BMI of HbAA, HbSC and HbSS. The distribution of the BMI percentiles for the three genotypes showed that 5% of HbAA, 20% of HbSC, and 35.7% of HbSS were in unhealthy categories. The occurrence of leg ulcers and priapism among the two SCD genotypes was 0% and 3.57% respectively. The Chi-square tests showed a significant difference between BMI percentiles (X2=72.51; P=<.001) or painful episodes (X2=15.992; P=.003) and hemoglobin genotypes [HbSS, HbSC]. Among SCD patients there was a relationship between BMI percentiles and pain frequency (X2=50.59; P=<.001).

Conclusion: The study suggests that SCD impacts BMI percentiles. Also, the frequency of occurrence of priapism and leg ulcers varied widely, indicating that priapism among the SCD patients may be a more common SCD complication than leg ulcer in the region. The fact that there was a higher frequency of pain among HbSS than HbSC suggests a bias in distribution of pain frequency in the 2 hemoglobinopathies.