The Gardos channel inhibitor senicapoc is proven to diminish haemolytic anaemia in a Phase II study conducted in adults with sickle cell anaemia (Ataga, et al 2008), and later confirmed in a Phase III study in sickle cell disease subjects as reported in a recent article in the British Journal of Haematology (Ataga, et al 2011).

Brain natriuretic peptide is a hormone secreted by ventricular cardiomyocytes in response to stretch (Levin, et al 1998). The plasma level of its propeptide (NT-proBNP) provides a convenient biomarker of cardiac stress, correlating in sickle cell subjects with pulmonary hypertension proven by pulmonary artery catheterization, or estimated by noninvasive Doppler echocardiography (Machado, et al 2006). Increased NT-proBNP in sickle cell adults is associated with lower haemoglobin, high serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and other laboratory variables (Machado, et al 2006, Mekontso Dessap, et al 2008, Mokhtar, et al 2010, van Beers, et al 2008, Voskaridou, et al 2007).