A young patient from the appropriate ethnicity for sickle cell disease. The bones are diffusely sclerotic for a young patient.

Several of the superior endplates of the thoracic vertebrae are depressed (due to infarction from vaso-occlusive disease). None as yet are H-shaped.

In this setting or in an exam, other findings to look for include:

• paraspinal masses from extramedullary hematopoiesis
• absent spleen from a splenectomy or calcified spleen from autoinfarction (so-called autosplenectomy)