Improving Sickle Cell Disease by Providing a Cure

UI Health now provides hope for a cure to patients with sickle cell disease through stem cell transplantation and without the need for chemotherapy.

The procedure — developed at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and validated at UI Health — relies on transplanted cells from a healthy, tissue-matched, full sibling. Patients receive immunosuppressive drugs just before the transplant, along with a very low dose of total body irradiation, a treatment much less harsh and with fewer potentially serious side effects than chemotherapy. Next, the sibling donor cells are transfused into the patient. Stem cells from the donor produce healthy new blood cells in the patient, eventually in sufficient quantity to eliminate symptoms of sickle. In many cases, sickle cells can no longer be detected.


In 2011, Chicagoan Iesha Thomas became the first patient in the Midwest to successfully receive a stem cell transplant to cure sickle cell. Thomas Thomas had her first sickle cell crisis when she was just 8 months old. Her disease became progressively worse as an adult, causing bone damage that required two hip replacements. Six months after her transplant at UI Health, Thomas was cured.

Lesha is now in her 40s