The news of fenben cancer treatment spread like wildfire after Joe Tippens posted videos of his terminally ill wife, who claimed she was completely cured by taking the drug. While the story is a compelling one, medical professionals say there’s no scientific evidence for the claims.
The anthelmintic drug fenbendazole has shown anti-cancer effects in vitro but its poor water solubility limits its use in cancer therapy. To overcome this issue, we have synthesized the drug into poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) acid nanoparticles (FZ-PLGA-NPs) to improve its water solubility and enhance its absorption in tumor cells. Our results showed that PLGA-NPs significantly enhanced the anti-cancer effect of FZ against epithelial ovarian cancer in both in vitro and in vivo models.
Our experiments with human H460 and A549 cell lines showed that FZ causes mild microtubule depolymerization and induces apoptotic cell death. In addition, dose dependent FZ treatment induced the nuclear accumulation of WT p53 protein, and this is correlated with elevated levels of acetylated tubulin and transcriptionally active p21.
We also tested the efficacy of oral and intraperitoneal administration of natural FZ in a cell line xenograft model of EOC using HeyA8 and HeyA8-MDR tumor cells. Oral administration of natural FZ caused no reduction in tumor growth while intraperitoneal injection of FZ-PLGA-NPs resulted in significant tumor reduction in both chemosensitive and chemoresistant HeyA8-MDR xenografts. These data suggest that repurposing of existing veterinary drugs can reduce the time and cost needed to develop new drugs. fenben cancer treatment