Computational Model of Restricted Diffusion for NMR Studies of Sickle Cell Disease

Abstract

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited disorder of hemoglobin structure that has no established cure in adult patients. The most important pathophysiologic event in sickle cell anemia, which explains most of its clinical manifestations, is vascular occlusion; this may involve both the micro- and macrovasculature. The primary process that leads to vascular occlusion is the polymerization of sickle hemoglobin (Hb) on deoxygenation, which in turn results in distortion of the shape of red blood cells (RBC), cellular dehydration, and decreased deformability and stickiness of RBC, which promotes their adhesion to and activation of the vascular endothelium. SCD has been regarded as a molecular disease without any established cure. Finding a realiable cure for this disease may be dependent on much we know about the molecular processes that lead to it and how we could possibly represent them in terms of images for classical observation. This study presents a contribution to the understanding of SCD using the Bloch – Torrey equation so that we can easily represent the associated chemical processes in MRI images. Vascular occlusion is used to describe any form of blockage to blood vessels.