Facial swelling in a sickle cell patient.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is characterized as a chronic hemolytic anemia with vaso-occlusive crises that result in multisystem organ damage. Bone marrow is one of the more common sites of these crises, presumably due to marrow hypercellularity that impairs blood flow- leading to regional hypoxia and subsequent infarction. Infarcts of facial bones are considered an uncommon complication of SCD.