1958 - Test for the diagnosis of Sickle Cell disease in newborns.

* Ferguson created guidelines for diagnosing sickle cell anemia in children under 12 using a blood test. * The blood test she developed to detect the disease at birth became a standard test in forty U.S. states by 2010 and remains the standard in most states to this day. * Through experimentation, she determined that if infants drank a glass of water once a day before age five, the increased blood volume reduced their chances of having a sickle-cell crisis, a condition in which the flow of damaged red blood cells is impeded, causing painful clogging of blood vessels.

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Category:
Pediatrics, Diagnostics

Completion Status:
yes

Patent Number:
N/A

Co-Inventor:
none