AKINWUMI IJEOMA NNENNA

Pediatrics and Child Health

At the Pediatrics And Child Health department office

Appointment on Visitation important

Topic: Minimally Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis Of Sickle Cell Disease Using Fetal Cells In Maternal Blood

Description: Pre-natal diagnosis PND of sickle cell disease SCD and termnation of affected foetuses or, in the alternative, early commencement of comprehensive care for sickle cell disease for better outcome has revolutionised the outlook on SCD. The popular older methods of chorionic villous sampling and amniocentsesis at the end of the first trimester carry minimal but unacceptable risk of miscarriage. Venous blood from the mother has been known to harbour foetal cells from the first trimester and blood letting for the mother is a constant acceptable part of routine antenatal care. Since this would provide information of unborn babys Haemoglobin genotype by concentrating and extracting the fetal cells in maternal blood for molecular genetic diagnosis of fetal cells while carrying no addition al risk of miscarriage, it would become a sought after tool for pre-natal diagnosis yet to be available in Nigeria for routine use.Given Nigerias SCD burden,it would be a welcome development in pre-natal diagnoses, prevention and control of SCD.

#	Certificate	School	Year
1.	M.Sc (Haemoglobinopathy)	University College, London	2013

Sickle Cell Disease SCD Clinical Phenotypes in Nigeria: A Preliminary Analysis of the Sickle Pan Africa Research Consortium SPARCO Nigeria SCD Data Base

Quality indigenous data on sickle cell disease to guide care of affected individuals in Nigeria is scarce and uncordinated. Despite despite the countrys high sickle cell burden, foreign literature has so far provided guidance for SCD management in Nigeria, a country best suited to study the disease in its natural habitat. Aim: Establish a single 13,000 patient African database and sickle cell disease register with the consent of the patients/ parents to inform a description of the epidemiology and phenotypic variations of sickle cell disease in Nigeria, Tanzania and GhanaMethods: A 10 centre study in Nigeria contributing 6000 patient records to the single database recruited patients according to their individual clinic populations after a two day training on the data gathering tool distributed to participating centres including LASUTH. Biodata and detailed identification data were collected over the last 12 months until August 2019 and masked before transmission to the general pool along with past medical history. Analysis was done centrally at the Centre of Excellence in SCD Education and Research, University of Abuja. Results were disseminated to the authors and other collaborators in a one day meeting in abuja on august 28th, 2019. A manuscript is presently being prepared for publication

AKINWUMI IJEOMA is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health

AKINWUMI has a M.Sc in Haemoglobinopathy from University College, London