Fenben is a popular antiparasitic drug used to treat various parasites in livestock. It’s not approved for use in humans. But anthelmintics, drugs that kill parasites in animals, are sometimes being studied for their possible anticancer effects.
But it’s too early to say whether they would work in people. A few studies suggest that anthelmintics may reduce cancer cell growth and slow tumour progression in laboratory animals. But the road from laboratory research to an approved treatment for human cancer is a long one.
One of the anthelmintic drugs that has received some attention recently is fenbendazole, which is an insecticide. This medication has been shown to slow cancer tumours in mice and human cells. It also has been shown to prevent cancer cells from evading conventional cancer treatments. The anti-parasitic effects of fenbendazole are thought to occur through disruption of microtubules in cancer cells and blocking of glucose uptake by inhibiting GLUT 4 expression, thereby starving the tumours.
Some social media posts claim that fenbendazole, sold as Panacur C in Canada, can cure cancer in humans. These posts are based on the anecdotal account of Joe Tippens, an American man who was diagnosed with a type of lung cancer and told that he had only months to live. But he said that he was cured by taking fenbendazole, which he got from a veterinarian. He combined this with other supplements and herbs to create his “Joe Tippens Protocol.”
In a series of Facebook and TikTok videos, an unlicensed veterinarian from British Columbia named Andrew Jones argues that fenbendazole has been shown to cure cancer in mice, a guinea pig, and his own wife. The videos have been reposted millions of times on these platforms, as well as other sites. But the evidence supporting this claim is weak, and it’s important to understand why.
Using an animal model, Dogra and colleagues reported that upon transplantation of A549 cells into female athymic nu/nu mice, fenbendazole (1 mg/mouse) was administered orally every other day for 12 days. This resulted in a reduction in tumor size and weight and reduced vascularity of the tumors.
But a randomized controlled trial in humans is needed to verify these results and determine whether fenbendazole can effectively reduce tumors in people. This is particularly important because the fenbendazole doses required for human consumption are very high. In addition, it isn’t known if the drug crosses the blood-brain barrier in humans. And although Tippens’ anecdotal experience of fenbendazole and his other therapies was promising, there are many other factors that could have contributed to his remission. fenben for humans