Glossary

This is a medical emergency when sickle cells block blood vessels in the lungs

Apheresis is the collection of blood-making stem cells using a machine that filters blood.

The cells in your body that create red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.

Blood-making stems cells from a donor are given to someone with sickle cell disease.

Very strong medicine that prepares your body to get new blood-making stem cells during a bone marrow transplant or gene therapy.

Healthy red blood cells from a donor are given to someone with sickle cell disease. This is repeated every 3 or 4 weeks.

Healthy red blood cells that you made before you were born (inside the womb).

Doctors change some genes (instructions) in the blood-making stems cells of someone with sickle cell disease.

After a bone marrow transplant, the body of the person who got the transplant attacks the donated stem cells.

After a bone marrow transplant, the donor stem cells attack the body of the person who got the transplant.

Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.

After chemotherapy, people have a weakened immune system, and their body is unable to fight germs. This is also called being immunosuppressed.

Having too much iron in your body can damage your liver, heart, pancreas, and other organs.

Medications for sickle cell disease include Hydroxyurea, L-Glutamine, Crizanlizumab (Adakveo), and Voxelotor (Oxbryta).

This problem happens when chemotherapy damages your liver (a part of your body that cleans your blood).