Background: The S haemoglobin variant or sickle cell (SC) disorder is an inherited condition; a person may have sickle cell disease (SCD) or trait (SCT) if he/she inherited two copies of the mutated gene or single copy (heterozygous), respectively. SCT is commonly a neglected hematologic disorder with accidental discovery. Detection of SCT subjects is vital to prevent incidence of serious complications particularly in soldiers and athletes. Moreover, it helps in primary prevention of SC disorder through premarital screening and counselling. Sure diagnosis of SCT re-lies on hemoglobin electrophoresis, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), isoelectric focusing and DNA studies that are expensive and not available in many centres.
Objectives: This study aimed to establish a diagnostic strategy for SCT that relied on simple, available, and relatively cheap tools, and to detect markers of disease severity in SCT.
Methods:The study included 24 SCD, 31 SCT and 60 controls. Males represented 14, 17 while females were 10, 14 and the median age was 22 and 29 for SCD and SCT cases, respectively. Patients and controls were interviewed, clinically and radiologically assessed then investigat-ed with CBC, solubilitytesting and HPLC. RBC indices were obtained from CBC whether directly or after simple calculations. Little is found in literature about the value of these indices in SCT.