Sodium cyanate is an ideal nucleophile, and these nucleophilic properties make it a major contributor to the stereospecificity in certain reactions such as in the production of chiral oxazolidone. Sodium cyanate is a useful reagent in producing asymmetrical urea that have a range of biological activity mostly in aryl isocyanate intermediates. Such intermediates as well as sodium cyanate have been used in medicine as a means of counterbalancing carcinogenic effects on the body.