Testing for the random occurrence of sickle cell disease in a study of 100,000 Jamaican newborns.
In a screening programme for sickle cell haemoglobinopathies at a maternity hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, 100,000 newborns were screened with the detection of 315 cases of SS disease, and 201 cases of SC disease. There was no upward or downward trend in the frequency of SS or SC births during the screening programme. The sequence numbers of the SS and SC births were analysed to examine whether these cases were randomly distributed among the 100,000 newborns. The occurrence of SS births seems to accord well with the random model but there was an excess of very long intervals between SC births.
Hayes
R J
RJ
Medical Research Council Laboratories, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica.
Serjeant
G R
GR
D000755:Anemia, Sickle Cell / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006450:Hemoglobin SC Disease / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007563:Jamaica / Q000453:epidemiology; D011336:Probability; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models