CLINICAL NEWS
constraints – Najibah A. Galadanci, MD,
from the Departments of Hematology and
Blood Transfusion at the Bayero University/
Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital in Kano,
Nigeria, and colleagues established small,
three-member stroke-prevention teams at
tertiary-care hospitals in the area.
Each stroke-prevention team consisted
of a pediatrician, nurse, and radiologist.
Team members were trained in National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute sickle cell
disease (SCD) management guidelines –
adapted for medical care in low-resource
settings – and a pediatric neurologist
provided instructions on how to detect a
stroke and stroke-related comorbidities.
Each clinic was also staffed with a trained
multidisciplinary team and a certified
radiologist to conduct transcranial doppler
ultrasound (TCD) screening.
With support from international
partners in the United Kingdom and the
United States, the teams were trained and
installed at four tertiary-care hospitals in
Nigeria in January 2017. Since then, 1,249
children with SCA have been screened us-
ing TCD. Most were referred to a clinical
trial, and of the 7 pe