Ready-to-use food supplement, with or without arginine and citrulline, with daily chloroquine in Tanzanian children with sickle-cell disease: a double-blind, random order crossover trial

What this study found

Both RUSF formulations improved bioavailable arginine and were associated with modest improvements in endothelial function, but fortified RUSF did not show a clear advantage over basic RUSF. Flow-mediated dilatation improved in the combined analysis by 0.66 (0.15 to 1.17), with a significant effect in the RUSF-v period (0.92, 0.30 to 1.54; p=0.004) but not the RUSF-b period (0.39, -0.23 to 1.02; p=0.22). Growth effects were small but favorable, including improved BMI-for-age Z-score (0.091, 0.039 to 0.143; p=0.001) and weight-for-age Z-score (0.070, 0.034 to 0.106; p<0.001), while…

Study & population

Double-blind, random-order crossover trial in children with HbSS sickle-cell disease from the Muhimbili Sickle Cohort in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Intervention

Children received a ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) for 4 months per treatment period, twice daily, in a double-blind crossover design.

Key limitation

The trial was relatively small, short term, and crossover in design, which limits inference about long-term clinical outcomes.

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