The Testing Evidence for Using Fenbendazole for Treating Osteosarcoma

ByPrimary Researcher

Executive Summary

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

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 Osteosarcoma.

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

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Cancer Type #13: Osteosarcoma

The following quote is from the article Hypoxia Inhibitor Combined with Chemotherapeutic Agents for Antitumor and Antimetastatic Efficacy against Osteosarcoma.

Chemotherapy is the main treatment method for osteosarcoma in the clinic. However, drug resistance and its poor antimetastatic effects greatly limit its clinical application. In this work, dual-drug nanoparticles (NPs) containing albendazole (ABZ) and doxorubicin (DOX), named AD@PLGA–PEG NPs, were prepared to solve the problems of chemotherapeutic drug resistance and poor antimetastasis effects.

Importantly, ABZ can also effectively inhibit the expression of hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and then reduce the expression of its downstream vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF); thus, the AD@PLGA–PEG NPs effectively inhibited tumor metastasis in vivo. Collectively, the dual-drug AD@PLGA–PEG NPs delivery system provided prominent antitumor and antimetastatic efficacy and might be a promising treatment for osteosarcoma.

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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.

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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.

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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?