(Credit: Numstocker/Shutterstock)
A examine printed within the November concern of Redox Biology has discovered that including intravenous, high-dose vitamin C to a chemotherapy routine doubled the survival of sufferers with late-stage, metastatic pancreatic most cancers from eight months to 16 months.
“This is an endemic with very poor outcomes for sufferers. The median survival is eight months with therapy, in all probability much less with out therapy, and the five-year survival is tiny. When we began the trial, we thought it could be a hit if we bought to 12 months survival, however we doubled overall survival to 16 months. The outcomes had been so sturdy in displaying the good thing about this remedy for affected person survival that we had been capable of cease the trial early,” explains Joseph J. Cullen, MD, FACS, a professor of Surgery and Radiation Oncology on the University of Iowa, in an announcement to StudyFinds.
The examine consisted of 34 sufferers with stage 4 pancreatic cancer who had been randomized to 2 teams. One group obtained customary chemotherapy (gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel). The different group obtained the identical chemotherapy plus intravenous infusions of 75 grams of vitamin C thrice per week.
The common survival for sufferers who obtained chemotherapy and vitamin C was 16 months. Patients who obtained solely chemotherapy survived a median of simply eight months.
“Not solely does it improve total survival, however the sufferers appear to really feel higher with the therapy. They have fewer side effects, and seem to have the ability to tolerate extra therapy, and we’ve seen that in different trials, too,” Cullen says.
There is extra proof of the good thing about intravenous high-dose vitamin C in most cancers therapy. Bryan Allen, MD, PhD, a professor and chief of Radiation Oncology on the University of Iowa, and Cullen collaborated on a trial of excessive dose vitamin C with chemotherapy and radiation for glioblastoma, a lethal mind most cancers. These sufferers additionally confirmed a big improve in survival.
Cullen, Allen, and their colleagues have been conducting analysis on the anti-cancer impact of high-dose, IV vitamin C for 20 years. They demonstrated that IV vitamin C produces excessive ranges within the blood that can’t be achieved by taking vitamin C orally. The excessive focus leads to adjustments in most cancers cells which makes them extra susceptible to chemotherapy and radiation. Cullen describes the outcomes of their innovation and perseverance as extremely encouraging.
“Through each step of the method, it continued to enhance. We did it in cells, it labored nice. We did it in mice, it labored nice. Then our part one trials appeared very promising. So, the development has simply been phenomenal, actually,” Cullen tells StudyFinds. “For instance, in one in all our part 1 trials for pancreatic most cancers, the place we mix high-dose IV vitamin C with radiation, we nonetheless have three long-term survivors. They’re out 9 years at this level, which is way past the everyday survival vary.”
In addition to Cullen and Allen, the UI staff additionally included physicians and researchers from the Departments of Surgery, Radiation Oncology, and Internal Medicine within the UI Carver College of Medicine, in addition to the UI College of Public Health and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
