A recent research has revealed that a new bone marrow transplant method was, during the course of the study, able to treat 9 out of the 10 adult patients studied with sickle cell disease, an inherited condition that causes severe bouts of pain, later leading to organ damage and a very limited life expectancy.

Generally, adults have not been candidates of receiving any treatment for the disease as they were thought to be too old to handle the effects of high chemotherapy doses and radiation that is required to prep the body for the procedure, as has been explained by Dr. John Tisdale, the study's lead author and a senior investigator in the molecular and clinical hematology branch at the U. S. National Institutes of Health.

Up until now, the transplant method had been reserved for more "resilient children, whose bodies had not yet suffered as much damage" from the condition, but thanks to the new research, the new method will make the treatment possible for adults as well, as it "allows for a less grueling pre-transplantation routine, one that even adults with severe sickle cell can tolerate".

The study, which involved 10 patients ranging from the 16-45 age group, placed then on the drug alemtuzumab, low radiation doses and sirolimus, and conclusions were drawn after careful analysis of data collected.

Details of the study have been published in the December 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.