Table 3. Mean (± SEM) Age and Clinical Status of Children With Sickle Cell Disease as a Function of Plasma Retinol Concentration

Variable	Plasma Retinol <20 μg/dL (n = 7)^{^a}	Plasma Retinol ≥20 μg/dL (n = 52)^{^a}	P Value	Plasma Retinol <20 μg/dL (n = 5 boys with HbSS)	Plasma Retinol ≥20 μg/dL (n = 18 boys with HbSS)	P Value
Age, years	8.81 ± 1.1	7.47 ± 0.65		8.87 ± 1.51	7.22 ± 0.80
Weight, kg	26.83 ± 2.82	25.54 ± 2.33		25.38 ± 3.35	22.53 ± 2.25
Weight percentile	28.21 ± 10.77	37.72 ± 4.62		20.50 ± 9.25	23.06 ± 5.89
Height, cm	131.5 ± 6.22	119.26 ± 4.45		128.8 ± 7.52	118.64 ± 6.99
Height percentile	22.5 ± 5.82	40.28 ± 4.87	0.09	25.07 ± 6.61	26.31 ± 7.46
Pain crises	1.57 ± 0.43	0.72 ± 0.19	0.05	1.40 ± 0.51	0.82 ± 0.23
Units of blood	0.71 ± 0.71	1.17 ± 0.33		1.00 ± 0.998	1.35 ± 0.64
Infections	0.57 ± 0.297	0.58 ± 0.13		0.60 ± 0.399	0.81 ± 0.28
Hospitalizations	1.86 ± 0.96	1.43 ± 0.27		1.20 ± 0.582	2.07 ± 0.59
Hematocrit, %	26.5 ± 1.87	27.78 ± 0.69		25.10 ± 2.28	24.22 ± 0.78
Hemoglobin, g/dL	8.50 ± 0.54	8.79 ± 0.2		8.22 ± 0.64	7.74 ± 0.18
White blood cells × 10⁶/mL	12.10 ± 0.97	12.69 ± 0.75		11.57 ± 1.11	14.57 ± 1.26
C-reactive protein, mg/L	18.27 ± 12.8	5.50 ± 1.64	0.05	25.58 ± 17.23	8.38 ± 4.24	0.08
Alpha-1-acid glycoprotein, g/L	071 ± 0.19	0.69 ± 0.04		0.83 ± 0.22	0.66 ± 0.08
Retinol binding protein, mg/L	19.30 ± 4.06	21.56 ± 1.14		14.72 ± 2.76	19.22 ± 1.81
Tumor necrosis factor-α, pg/mL	32.71 ± 19.7	50.61 ± 13.64		33.74 ± 28.05	69.73 ± 28.62
Inflammation score	0.71 ± 0.29	0.35 ± 0.08	0.07	0.80 ± 0.37	0.33 ± 0.16	0.1
Health score^{^b}	5.43 ± 1.67	3.84 ± 0.61		5.20 ± 1.83	4.83 ± 1.09

↵^a All hemoglobin phenotypes included.
↵^b Health score is the sum of the number of episodes of pain crisis, infection, hospital admission, and/or blood units received.