The Testing Evidence for Using Fenbendazole for Treating Leukemia

Executive Summary

• This article covers the evidence I could find for Fenbendazole as a treatment for Leukemia.

Article Summary

Studies demonstrate that Fenbendazole is effective against cancer, we then cover how Fenbendazole works against cancer by explaining the mechanisms of action, and then the impacts of Fenbendazole on cancer.

Introduction

This article provides an overview covering the evidence for Fenbendazole and related drugs versus Leukemia.

Many articles on this website cover the evidence for the benefits of Fenbendazole for cancer. But the question of which specific cancers Fenbendazole has been proven effective is a constant source of questions.

The most common Benzimidazoles are Fenbendazole, Mebendazole and Albendazole. In our analysis, we include research for all three drugs together in articles as they are very similar to one another and it improves the ability to tie together different studies. You may see the following terms/acronyms used.

• FZ or FBZ means Fenbendazole
• MBZ means Mebendazole
• AZ means Albendazole

Cancer Type #5: Leukemia

The following quote is from the article The Antitumor Potentials of Benzimidazole Anthelmintics as Repurposing Drugs.

The benzimidazole anthelmintics inhibited NF-κB signaling by decreasing phospho-p65 and the nuclear translocation of NF-κB and by increasing the half-life of nuclear factor of kappa light polypeptide gene enhancer in B-cells inhibitor, alpha (IκBα). However, albendazole-induced sirtuin 3 (SIRT3) degradation elicited ROS-mediated p38 MAPK activation, leading to pyruvate kinase M2-mediated tristetraprolin (TTP) degradation, followed by TNF-α upregulation in human leukemia cells (46).

The following quote is from the article Fenbendazole as a Potential Anticancer Drug.

However, our cell culture data show that fenbendazole inhibits the growth of EMT6 tumor cells in vitro when given continuously at doses not far above those expected in the tissues of rodents fed this diet.

It is therefore possible that tumor cell lines that are more sensitive to the cytotoxic effects of either tubulin-directed agents or the metabolic disruption induced by benzimidazoles might be more sensitive to fenbendazole than are EMT6 tumors. In this regard, it is notable that experiments demonstrating that fenbendazole inhibited the growth of a human leukemia in SCID mice9 used a model system with notable sensitivity in 2 respects. First, leukemia cells (like most cells of hematopoietic origin) are less able to repair damage and more likely to undergo apoptosis in response to injury from radiation, drugs or metabolic disruption than are cells of other lineages.
The effects of fenbendazole on tubulin might synergize with or antagonize the effects of anticancer drugs with mechanisms of action that involve stabilization or disruption of microtubules (for example, paclitaxel, docetaxel, vincristine, vinblastine, colchicine and podophyllotoxin);36 such synergism has been reported for the closely related benzimidazole flubendazole.

Adding up the Studies of Fenbendazole Versus Cancer

There are many studies of Fenbendazole, Mebendazole, Albendazole, and other Benzimidazole derivatives versus cancer.

Due to the success of these studies and the information published in the study publications, the specific mechanisms by which these Benzimidazole-based Anthelmintics work against cancer are at this point well understood. There has not been a study published for every cancer type using one of the Benzimidazole derivatives. There are a very large number of different cancer types and limited funding for this type of research.

How Many Major Cancer Types Are There Studies For?

When I completed my analysis, I found 18 different types of cancer types which demonstrated effectiveness versus cancer. In many cases, these different cancer types had multiple cancer studies testing the different Benzimidazole derivatives.

Cancer centers do not apply the large body of published studies on the effectiveness of Benzimidazole derivatives to include as part of their treatment offerings. This is true even though Fenbendazole has been demonstrated to improve chemotherapy outcomes.

To understand the mechanisms by which Benzimidazole derivatives work against cancer, see the following few examples. To see all of the known mechanisms that I have compiled from all of the studies see the article on the mechanisms listed below.

The Multiple Mechanisms by Which Fenbendazole Works Against Cancer

There are many ways in which Fenbendazole works against cancer including.

• Reducing metastasis
• Increase autophagy
• Increase cancer cell death or apoptosis
• and much more

This topic is covered in the article By How Many Different Mechanisms Does Fenbendazole Fight Cancer?