Sickle Cell Pain Events Caused by Menstrual Cycle

   On Monday, April 14th, 2025 Dennis Thompson from Health Day News reported that women who have sickle cell disease often have pain crises around the same time as their menstrual cycles and how researchers might have a guess on to why. A resident in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Dr. Jessica Wu discussed how the amount of inflammation significantly elevates within the follicular phase, or also known as the first half of the menstrual cycle within female patients who have present sickle cell disease. This led to an observation that would correlate to how researchers viewed the literature which presented the most vaso-occlusice events (VOEs) in the patient population. They discovered that the pain events the patients were experiencing were most related events to sickle cell disease. With this new finding, there could be potential treatments in the future that can help reduce women's risk of painful events during menstruation. With understanding how sickle cell disease is most common inherited red blood cell disorders, the cells are able to become lodged in the veins and block the blood flow that can lead to organ damage and infections. This can cause the VOEs episodes of severe pain that can be so intensive that people may require hospitalization. A new study was created that allowed researchers to analyze blood samples of 13 women and 18 men with sickle cell disease, as they would be tracking the C-reactive protein that is produced by the liver when inflammation is present in the body. They found that the C-reactive protein was higher on and more persistent in women within their first half of their menstrual cycle. 

   I found that this new discovery was really intriguing to learn about because the women's menstrual cycle is often overlooked in research and clinical care. I feel like the more data researchers are able to collect on how patients with sickle cell disease experience pain within their first half of their menstrual cycle is analyzed, they will be able to provide better care to the patients. By creating new methods and treatments to prevent this harmful pain can allow patients to live better lives and get to experience more over time than settling in pain. 

Links:

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-04-14/menstrual-cycle-could-be-contributing-to-sickle-cell-pain-events

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441843/