[Management of children with sickle cell anemia: a collaborative work]

Treatment of children with sickle cell disease has been impressively improved during recent years. Neonatal screening is now generalized to all continental France. Coupled with parents' education and a comprehensive care program, it allows a reduction of pneumococcal infections, and of the mortality related to splenic sequenstration, the occurrence of cerebrovascular accidents being also reduced by the use of transcranial Doppler ultrasonography. However, to be effective these measures require a close collaboration not only between parents and the medical team but frequently also between the medical team and social workers, as many affected children living in France are born from first generation African migrants, for whom it may be difficult to understand and/or to apply the care program.