What is hydroxyurea?
Hydroxyurea is a chemical compound that has been used as a medication for more than a century. It was one of the first medicines used in the fight against cancer, and it’s still a valuable drug for some of the slower-growing types of the disease. For sickle cell, it comes in capsule form and is administered once a day. Hydroxyurea is not a cure, but it can make sickle cell disease milder. In many people, it helps cut the number of pain episodes, acute chest problems, and hospitalizations in half. New findings also show that it improves the life expectancy of adults with sickle cell. Although researchers aren’t sure why it works, one of hydroxyurea’s effects is to make the body produce red blood cells with more fetal hemoglobin, which dilutes the sickle hemoglobin inside the red blood cells. It also seems to produce cells that are larger, less dehydrated, more flexible, and less sticky-all highly desirable properties. The number of white blood cells also goes down on hydroxyurea, which
