For years, Dr. Crawford Strunk has felt the Toledo area had a major gap in care available to sickle-cell patients who age out of pediatric clinics. 

But in December, the hematologist’s vision to transition his juvenile patients into adult care after they turn 18 finally came to fruition. 

ProMedica Toledo Hospital’s new Adult Sickle Cell Clinic housed inside its Oncology and Infusion Center is now treating adult patients who previously had to drive to Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati, or Dayton to receive specialized care. It’s the latest addition in a field in which more and more adult-care clinics sprout as medicine has advanced life expectancy. 

Dr. Strunk, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist at ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital, said patients from the Toledo area were driving long distances to get care needed. Now, they’ve got a place right in their backyard. 

“This is a center that has the ability to see both youth adolescents as well as older adults,” said Dr. Strunk, who now treats adults as well. “There’s not enough adult providers, so we felt this was a service needed in our area.”

ProMedica’s new clinic is staffed by Dr. Strunk and Dr. Drew Oostra. The clinic provides “comprehensive treatment including transfusions, pain management, and exemplary care for adults,” according to a news release. 

The need for more adult care for people who have the sickle-cell trait, a condition that affects approximately 100,000 Americans and 8 percent of African Americans, has heightened over the last 20 years, according to Annie Womack-Ross, the Ohio Sickle Cell and Health Association’s executive director.

When the sickle-cell trait was first identified in 1910, Ms. Womack-Ross said, life expectancy was too short for adult clinics to be needed — and stayed that way for a long time. 

“They were not equipped for people to live longer,” she said. “Patients were dying.”

But as medicine progressed, sickle-cell patients began living longer and the gap of care for when patients enter adulthood arose, Ms. Womack-Ross said. 

“When you’re dealing with adult patients, you’re dealing with things that you don’t find at pediatric clinics,” she said. “Once a patient transitions into the adult world, that’s where we lose a lot of patients. But it’s 2020. Sickle cell has been diagnosed for a long time. We have more adult patients and we need more adult clinics.”

In nearby Lima, Mercy Health St. Rita’s Family Medicine has also added adult services. Dr. Robert Zukas, an osteopathic physician, said sickle-cell patients in the area were driving to Dayton to get services now offered in Lima. 

“The distance made it difficult for them,” he said. 

The national median life expectancy is now 42 to 47 years for individuals with sickle-cell disease, according to the American Society of Hematology.

“What previously was never an adult disease, is now an adult disease,” Dr. Zukas said.

Known in its most severe form as sickle-cell anemia, the inherited disease reduces the oxygen-carrying capability of the blood’s hemoglobin and can cause misshapen red blood cells that are incapable of delivering sufficient oxygen to the body.

First Published February 21, 2020, 6:20 p.m.