Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
The association between hydroxyurea treatment and pain intensity, analgesic use, and utilization in ambulatory sickle cell anemia patients.
We compared daily pain, home analgesic use, and utilization among ambulatory adults in the randomized multicenter study of hydroxyurea in sickle cell anemia (MSH). We related the fetal hemoglobin (HbF) hydroxyurea response to these response variables. ⋯ Hydroxyurea usage led to a small, statistically significant reduction in daily pain, analgesic use, and utilization in adults in MSH, corroborating previously shown larger reductions in crises and mortality. The degree of daily symptomatic reduction was related to the size of the HbF treatment response, further confirming HbF response as a useful laboratory correlate.