Could nitric oxide slow the progression of lymphoma through the lymphatic system? Wondering if anyone is working on this.

What leads you to believe that nitrous oxide would be efficacious against the spread of a lymphoma? A search of nitrous oxide and lymphoma at pubmed turns up very little, and certainly nothing beyond pre-clinical testing, meaning in a petri dish, and even then it's hard to identify anything focusing specifically on that.

Nitric Oxide not nitrious oxide. Nitric oxide (common name) or nitrogen monoxide (systematic name) is a chemical compound with chemical formula NO. This diatomic gas is an important cell signaling molecule in mammals, including humans. It is also an extremely important intermediate in the chemical industry. Nitric oxide is an air pollutant produced by combustion of substances in air, like in automobile engines and fossil fuel power plants.

In mammals, NO is an important cellular messenger molecule involved in many physiological and pathological processes.[2] Low levels of NO production are important in protecting an organ such as the liver from ischemic damage. Chronic expression of NO is associated with various carcinomas and inflammatory conditions including juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and ulcerative colitis.[citation needed]

Nitric oxide should not be confused with nitrous oxide (N2O), an anesthetic and greenhouse gas, or with nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a brown toxic gas and a major air pollutant. However, nitric oxide is rapidly oxidised in air to nitrogen dioxide. Humphrey Davy discovered this to his discomfort, when he inhaled the gas early in his career.

Just a question I posed to a lymphoma researcher after reading the following excerpted story about snakebites:

A chemical compound that is used on heart patients may raise chances of survival for snakebite victims, Australian scientists said on Monday.

In a paper published in Nature Medicine, the researchers said the chemical nitric oxide can slow down by as much as 50 percent the time it takes for snake venom to enter the bloodstream.

With that extra time, victims can seek medical help, said lead author Dirk van Helden, professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Newcastle in Australia.

"When you are bitten by a snake, the toxins are large molecules and they get injected into tissues. They can't break into blood vessels because they are too big. So they get taken up by the lymphatic system and it takes them into the blood vessels," Helden said in a telephone interview.

"The idea is to close off the lymph flow ... and we tried it and it markedly slowed lymph flow in rats and also in humans."

In their experiment, Helden and colleagues rubbed an ointment containing nitric oxide around the spot where mice were injected with lethal doses of snake venom and found that it slowed lymph flow significantly.

"(They) lived for an hour on average (without ointment), but when we put the cream on, (another group of mice) lived for 90 minutes. If you can slow the lymph, it has a massive effect on survival," he said.

The ointment had the same effect on human volunteers, although in this case, the participants were injected with a harmless dye which had molecules of roughly the same size as snake venom.

Helden said nitric oxide had the effect of slowing down the pumping action of the lymphatic system, which in turn slowed down the transportation of the venom into the bloodstream.

The question: I just read a story about a cream made of nitric oxide that can slow down the lymphatic system. Is it possible this could slow down the progression of lymphoma to give treatment a chance to work?

The answer so far: It would not do anything to help the treatment of lymphoma. In fact, it would be concerning that this would slow down the chemo for working.