Acute Chest Syndrome, Avascular Necrosis of Femur, and Pulmonary Embolism All at Once: An Unexpected Encounter in the First-Ever Admission of a Sickle Cell Patient

Acute chest syndrome (ACS) is defined as the radiological appearance of pulmonary infiltrates with fever or respiratory symptoms like chest pain, breathlessness, and cough in a patient with sickle cell disease (SCD). It is also a very common cause of mortality in sickle cell patients, if not identified in early stages and treated aggressively. Radiological image is similar to bacterial pneumonia, so sickle cell disease with a radiological picture similar to pneumonia and associated respiratory symptoms is known as acute chest syndrome. Pneumonia and infarction have been implicated in pathogenesis. The reason for the appearance of acute chest syndrome in patients with SCD is not established but some triggers like sepsis, presence of vaso-occlusive crises have been noted. When there is a block in the blood supply to the bone, patients with sickle cell disease may also develop avascular necrosis of the neck of the femur causing narrowing of joint and collapse of the bone. Patients with sickle cell disease have a baseline hypercoagulable state thereby predisposing the patient to develop deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Here, we present a case of a 25-year-old SCD patient with a fairly stable course of the disease. He had no history of prior admissions and he had his first-ever episode of sickle cell crisis lading in with acute chest syndrome, avascular necrosis of femur, and pulmonary embolism all at once. After an extensive review of the literature, we found this to be the first case report in the world where all these three complications of sickle cell disease developed simultaneously in a patient.