Emergency red cell exchange for the management of acute complications in sickle cell disease: Automated versus manual

Red blood cell exchange is the cornerstone of the management for acute complications of sickle cell disease. It improves anaemia and improvesperipheral tissue oxygen delivery while at the same time reduces the proportion of circulating sickle erythrocytes. Even though automated red cell exchange is very effective in rapidly lowering the Hb S level, 24-h availability is currently not feasible for most specialist centres including our own.

Here, we describe our experience using both automated and manual red cell exchange for the management of acute sickle cell complications.

Eighty-six such episodes have been recorded between June 2011 and June 2022 comprising of 68 episodes of automated and 18 episodes of manual red cell exchange.

The post procedure Hb S/S + C level was 18% after automated and 36% after manual red cell exchange. The platelet count dropped by 41% and 21% after automated and manual red cell exchange respectively. The clinical outcomes including need for organ support, duration of stay in the intensive care unit and overall length of hospitalisation was comparable between the two groups.

In our experience, manual red cell exchange is a safe and effective alternative to an automated procedure that can be used while specialist centres are building up their capacity to offer automated red cell exchange for all patients requiring the intervention.