Nitric acid may have therapeutic effect.

• Position: Sickle Cell Anemia - American Society of Anesthesiologists - Brief Article

Nitric oxide (NO) gas, considered an environmental pollutant in large quantities, one day may help people with sickle cell disease, predicts C. Alvin Head, an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. The disease affects an estimated 70-100,000 individuals in the U.S. It is caused by a flaw in the gene that makes hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying molecule in red blood cells. This flaw makes hemoglobin molecules stick to one another, forming rigid rods within the red blood cells and distorting the cells from round to crescent, or sickle, shapes. These "sticky" abnormal cells produce temporary and sometimes permanent blockages in the body's microscopic blood vessels that can cause pain, decrease the oxygen supply to surrounding tissues, and produce acute organ distress or chronic organ damage.

In high doses, NO is toxic, but in very low doses, it...