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Road Traffic Accident in a Case of Sickle Cell Disease: Death Due to the Accident or the Disease?.

M Vasundhara1, Basumitra Das, V Chandra Sekhar, and A Bhagya Lakshmi

Sickle cell Disease a homozygous condition for the abnormal hemoglobin gene HbS, is associated with decreased life expectancy and recurrent episodes of various types of crises like hemolytic crisis, sickle crisis, sequestration crisis, vaso–occlusive crisis and aplastic crisis. Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) can sometimes occur in conditions of tissue trauma and septicemia and rarely without septicemia as well. If the pathogenesis of the disease is not correctly understood and the crises were not attended properly DIC may set in leading to shock,multi-organ failure and even death. We present a case of DIC in a young female patient of Sickle cell Disease who met with a motor accident and developed multi-organ failure resulting in death. It is important to have prior knowledge about the pathogenesis of the disease and attend the crises even before the complication sets in, so that the patient’s life may be saved.