How Anti-Parasitic Medications Can Revolutionize Cancer Treatment?

05/01/2025

 

What is Cancer?

Before we talk about the possible treatments for cancer, we need to first learn about the disease.

Our body is amazing at its job, and one of the functions it carries out is the regular clean-up of cells that are too damaged or old. Each cell in our body has a limited lifespan that varies from a few days to years, after which it ends its cycle through a process of cell lysis. Cancer is a condition that causes this function to break down, causing an abnormal growth of cells. This growth of cells is a result of certain mutations that allow the cells to grow rapidly without dying naturally (through apoptosis).

This growth can be fatal as it strips the body of nutrition by diverting all of its energy into the growth of these cells and tissues. It can also lead to eventual organ failure and death if not treated on time. Thankfully, we have many treatments available that allow us to battle this disease head-on.  

What Anti-parasitic Medications Are Being Studied For the Treatment of Cancer?

Anti-parasitic or anti-helminth medications are primarily used for the treatment of various worm diseases such as ascariasis, hookworm, and filariasis. They work by degenerating the inner and outer lining of the intestinal tract of these parasites, which leads to their death. However, this mechanism of action has been seen to target cancer cells as well, inducing apoptosis and halting cell growth and proliferation in them. Let us dive deeper into the medicines that have been studied for this purpose.

Ivermectin

Ivermectin has shown great potential as an anticancer drug with various pathways that promote cell arrest, bypass drug resistance, and promote apoptosis in cancer cells. Since the first study in 2004, there have been over 500 papers written about it till 2013. This medication is said to be effective for colorectal cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and lung cancer in various studies. However, the implications of this medication have only been studied in immune-deficient mice as of now, but the results strongly suggest that an antitumor effect can be seen in cancer patients as well.

This medication also shows a strong reversal of tumor multidrug resistance (sensitizing the cancer to existing cancer treatments). In an experiment which tested the effects of ivermectin on lymphocytic leukemia, ivermectin was shown to inhibit the P-gp associated proteins that are responsible for cell proliferation in cancer stem cells.

Albendazole

Albendazole has been shown to treat various cancers, such as ovarian, prostate, colorectal, and hepatocellular cancer, along with melanoma, HPV, and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. This array of cancers has been shown to decrease by 50% in some patients in a phase 1 trial study, which was done to determine the maximum dose of Albendazole that can be administered to a patient to manage and shrink tumors. Albendazole has shown similar cytotoxic effects as that of ivermectin. It has also been shown to sensitize cancer cells to other treatments as well.

According to an article which was published in the British Journal of Cancer, this medication has been shown to have inhibitory effects on colorectal cancer cells, xenograft tumor growth, and organoids from mice.

Fenbendazole

Fenbendazole has been shown to cause cancer cell death in specific cancer known as EMT6 tumor cells in mice. This tumor cell is used as a precursor to determine possible treatments for breast cancer in humans.  It has been shown to activate P-53-mediated apoptosis (cell death that is brought on through the P-53 protein). The evidence on this is relatively weaker with individualized case studies done on the same where patients had self-administered this medication.

However, one issue that researchers run into with this drug while studying its anti-cancer effects is its low solubility in water, which makes it hard to travel through the bloodstream. This happens when the medicine is taken orally and is a pharmacokinetic limitation of the drug.

Mebendazole

Mebendazole has been studied in various separate trials in vivo and in vitro for various types of cancers, including adrenocortical cancer, gliomas, osteosarcomas, and breast cancers. It has also shown promising results in the treatment of lung cancer, where this medication was able to get rid of about 80% of the cancer in a xenograft model. This medication is also being currently studied at Johns Hopkins for the treatment of brain tumors. There have also been individualized case studies of metastatic colon cancer as well. It has also been shown to cure melanomas and gliomas in mice. It stops the proliferation and halts cell growth of cancerous cells through P-21 and P-53 mediated apoptosis. Mebendazole has been observed to exhibit more cytotoxic activity than albendazole and fenbendazole.

What are the Current Available Treatments for Cancer?

We currently have a few ways to treat cancer, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, stem cell transplants, etc. However, it can be difficult to clear out all the cancerous cells due to the type, positioning, and metastasizing of the cancer. The first line of treatment is usually chemotherapy and radiation, which is then further augmented by tumor removal surgery if needed.

 However, we have seen some promising research on the use of anti-helminth and anti-parasitic medications in treating cancer.

What are The Problems We Face with Current Treatments for Cancer?

The aforementioned approach to treating cancer has been used for decades in the medical field and has seen a fair amount of success, with 5-year survival rates ranging from 36% to 99.9% in cancer that has not yet metastasized. However, patients face many problems because of these treatments.

Diminished Quality of Life

People who receive cancer treatments often have severe side effects of the treatment, including weakness, nausea, and fatigue that can be debilitating. It prevents them from leading a relatively normal life. In severe cases, it also restricts their movement and makes them unable to enjoy their life. Many people opt out of treatment if they have a low chance of survival. People who undergo surgery and radiation often have to be very careful about their diet and daily activity, and their lives during and after treatment can seem very harsh.

Prices for Treatment

While it is hard to determine the exact numbers, about 25% of patients refuse complete or partial treatment due to the high costs. While it doesn’t seem to be a huge factor in play, it still is a significant concern for the medical community as a whole. With prices soaring through the sky and beyond, it might get hard for people to receive basic necessary treatments as well.

Long Term Effects

These forms of treatments can leave lasting impacts on patients with diminished mental health, stunted social interactions, and cognitive changes. In some cases, it can also damage the function of the heart and lead to a condition known as osteoporosis, which is characterized by the thinning of bones. It can also cause dietary problems, making your body unable to absorb certain vitamins and creating a deficiency.

Can We Use Anti-parasitic Medicines to Treat Cancer in Actual Patients?

Most of these treatments have only been studied till phase I of their trials, while others are still in their initial stages of trials with studies in vitro and in mice. They can be a miraculous breakthrough in cancer treatment, being able to target all the cells of cancer, decreasing side effects and recovery time, and preserving the quality of life in patients. However, it is important to understand that medical trials take years to be passed and approved due to strict and meticulous guidelines. It could be years before the aforementioned medications are successfully repositioned as anticancer drugs.

What Problems will This Drug Repositioning solve?

Drug Repositioning is the practice of experimenting with known drugs to treat diseases other than their intended use. If anti-parasitic and anti-helminth medications can be repurposed as medications for treating cancer, it can solve quite a few problems that the medical community and patients face in receiving treatment for cancer.

It will simplify the process of treating the disease, and even though it still would be used adjunct to other treatments, it will be less overwhelming for patients as the intensity of treatments would reduce significantly. It will also improve post-treatment lives for patients as they would have fewer or no long-lasting side effects of cancer treatment.

Due to its mechanism of action, oral tablets that target cancer cells can be used to treat inoperable cases of cancer, such as gliomas that are far too deep in the brain and near the brain stem. This could revolutionize treatments in innumerable ways.

What is The Future of Cancer Treatment?

While the medical community is striving for treatments that are more centralized towards increasing recovery, there are many therapies such as CRISPR, Gene Sequencing and biomarkers, and cTDNA analysis that are focused on targeting the genome of the human body and defeating cancer by interfering with the mutation itself. All of these studies are fascinating and carry a lot of different possibilities along with them. Anti-parasitic drugs are also one such emerging treatment that has shown promising results with future development.

Conclusion

The medical field is an ever-evolving journey, with about 1.5 to 1.8 million papers being published each year. With exciting research and fascinating new discoveries, cancer research is at an all-time high. Optimistically, we can see anti-parasitic medications being used adjunct to other treatments for managing and eliminating cancers of all kinds. With clinical studies being commenced for some of the drugs, we can rest assured that there will be inevitable and exponential advancements in cancer research. In the battle against cancer, we could potentially find an ace that was hidden all along.