Urea Therapy in Sickle-Cell Disease

Excerpt

To the editor: The recent letter of Drs. Rudders and Pisciotta (Ann Intern Med 77:659-660, 1972) sets forth their understandable demurral on urea therapy in sickle-cell disease. Our views can be supported by documentation from current literature.

Independent reports of the successful use of oral urea therapy are now available. Targino de Araujo, Wronowski, and Cimino (1) managed 20 patients on oral urea, with 20 controls. They noted that all 20 of the treated patients, previously refractory to other therapeutic regimens, "presented marked clinical improvement." Also, they found evidence of increased hemoglobin synthesis in 4 of the 20 treated patients.