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Hydroxyurea Use in Sickle Cell Disease

Should it be used more widely?

Publish date:: January 27, 2016

Hydroxyurea (HU) use should be considered in children with sickle cell disease (SCD) to prevent hospitalization rather than as a treatment to improve hospitalization outcomes, according to a study of 2,665 children aged 2 to 18 years with SCD. Researchers found:

About 80% of patients had an inpatient code indicating HU use.

Significantly more nonusers (30.1%) had a recent ICU admission vs HU users.

More nonusers (33.9%) had a history of ≥ 3 admissions vs HU users (21.5%).

After applying propensity score weighting, users and nonusers did not differ in their length of stay, prevalence of ICU admissions, or prevalence of transfusions.

Citation: Creary SE, Chisolm DJ, Koch TL, Zigmont VA, Lu B, O’Brien SH. Hydroxyurea use in children with sickle cell disease: Do severely affected patients use it and does it impact hospitalization outcomes? [Published online ahead of print January 21, 2016]. Pediatr Blood Cancer. doi: 10.1002/pbc.25894.

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