Fenben is a drug that was used in the past to treat animal parasites like whipworms, hookworms and a single species of tapeworm. The drug debuted in scientific trials years ago under the brand name Safe-Guard or Panacur. It has recently come back into the spotlight after a popular story emerged about a man using fenben to cure his own cancer.
The case of this cancer patient was reported in a medical journal. The patient was suffering from liver dysfunction with elevated AST (aspartate transaminase), ALT (alanine aminotransferase) and CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) levels in his blood. The patient started taking fenbendazole at 1 g per day PO for 3 days followed by 4 days off for one month. His AST and ALT levels returned to normal. The CEA level also dropped to a normal range after he stopped taking the medicine.
Research conducted by Dr Tapas Mukhopadhyay, former director of National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NCGST), Chandigarh has shown that fenbendazole exhibits moderate microtubule depolymerizing activity in human cancer cells and has potent anticancer effects both in vitro and in vivo. “Fenbendazole disrupts the cytoskeleton of cancer cells and causes them to break apart by blocking tubulin binding. It also interferes with glucose metabolism of cancer cells, leading to their preferential elimination both in vitro and in vivo,” he told India Science Wire.
He added that single-target drugs usually show limited efficacy and often result in drug resistance, whereas drugs targeting multiple pathways are expected to have improved efficacy besides being able to evade the emergence of resistance. The repositioning of antihelminthic benzimidazole carbamate group drugs such as metronidazole (MBZ), albendazole (ABZ) and flubendazole as cancer-fighting agents is therefore a promising approach. fenben for humans
