Fenbendazole, an antihelminthic drug commonly used to treat rodent pinworm infections, has been shown to have some antitumor activity in cancer research. This is because fenbendazole disrupts the cell’s ability to take up glucose which starves it. Fenbendazole also boosts the production of p53, a gene that cancer patients may lack, thus further inhibiting tumor growth.
At our institution, a fenbendazole diet was used during a facility treatment for Aspiculuris tetraptera pinworms and, unusually, human lymphoma xenografts failed to grow in SCID mice. To determine whether fenbendazole or supplemental vitamins were responsible for the antitumor effect, 4-wk-old SCID mice were randomized to 4 diets: control, fenbendazole only, vitamin plus fenbendazole, and vitamin and fenbendazole.
Initial and terminal white blood counts showed no differences between the 4 groups. However, at study termination, the fenbendazole plus vitamin group demonstrated significantly lower total white cell and neutrophil values than did the control group.
This difference may have been due to a lower vitamin concentration in the diet used during this later observation, as dietary preparations degrade with time and storage. It is also possible that a combination of fenbendazole and the added vitamins was more effective than either one alone, but this hypothesis requires further investigation. sanare lab fenbendazole