Classification of Pain Dynamics in Sickle Cell Disease from Mobile App Reporting

Background: Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a chronic blood disorder in which complications result from vaso-occlusion. Pain is the most common symptom reported in patients with SCD and includes both acute unpredictable pain as well as chronic pain. Chronic pain is clinically defined as having more days with pain than without pain over a period of 6 months. Various classifications systems have been developed to better understand pain phenotypes, however, there is variability in data and groupings of patients. Recent work based on patient-reported outcome data has shown that patients may be classified into three subgroups: infrequent acute pain, limited recent pain with moderate long-term pain, and persistent severe pain.