While it’s true that fenbendazole can slow cancer cell growth in some cell culture and animal studies, there’s no sufficient evidence from randomized clinical trials to show that it cures human cancer. There are many established treatments, such as chemotherapy, that can kill cancer cells and prevent them from growing.
The claim that a man named Joe Tippens recovered from advanced colon cancer using a combination of fenbendazole and dietary supplements is making the rounds on social media. It’s also being promoted by some alternative medicine practitioners as a “cure for all cancers.” Unfortunately, Health Feedback can’t validate the claims in this article. Tippens’ anecdotal experience may have been influenced by other factors that weren’t accounted for, and there isn’t enough data to support the claim that his fenbendazole treatment cures all cancers.
Health Feedback has previously reviewed some of the research on fenbendazole and found that it can cause cytotoxicity in cancer cells by modulating multiple cellular pathways. For example, fenbendazole causes partial alteration of the microtubule network in the center of the cell and interferes with glucose metabolism to stop cancer cells from using glucose as an energy source. It can also stimulate the expression of WT p53 tumor suppressor genes to trigger cell death.
In the study cited in this article, scientists treated colorectal cancer (CRC) cells with varying concentrations of fenbendazole and then assayed their viability using a colony formation assay. They found that fenbendazole significantly reduced the proliferation of both SNU-C5 and SNU-C5/5-FUR cells with a dose-dependent trend. The cells showed less toxicity in the presence of oxygen, but even in severe hypoxia fenbendazole caused a significant decrease in survival.
These results were confirmed in mouse experiments where fenbendazole was given to three mice daily, either alone or along with x-rays to treat their EMT6 CRC tumors. Both the appearance of the tumors and the number of lung metastases seen on necropsy were similar for mice treated with fenbendazole alone and those treated with a combination of fenbendazole plus x-rays.
Developing new drugs can be expensive and time-consuming, but repurposing a drug that shows promise for human use can save considerable time and money. The drug in question here is a broad-spectrum benzimidazole anthelmintic approved for use in veterinary medicine. It has been shown to be effective in killing a variety of parasites and can be used in many different animal species. Moreover, it is safe in most species and tolerated well by animals when administered at low doses. Moreover, a wide range of cancer cells can be killed by this drug at relatively high concentrations with minimal toxicity. This makes it a promising candidate for future anti-cancer therapies. fenbendazole cancer treatment