FDA OKs Trial on Vitamin C for Cancer: Cancer Treatment Centers of America Runs Research
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PUBLICATION: Chicago Tribune
DATE PUBLISHED: 1/11/07
Cancer Treatment Centers of America is beginning a unique phase I study of high dose intravenous vitamin C that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
The study will evaluate 18 patients in groups of three, starting at low doses and escalating to high doses of intravenous vitamin C in later groups. The study is designed to evaluate safety and tolerability, toxicity and pain, as well as quality of life. A treatment hospital for advanced stage cancer patients, CTCA traditionally treats cancer conventionally and with complementary alternative medicine--focusing on therapies that are known to treat and beat cancer.
Christopher Lis, CTCA's vice president of research and development stated that "Our vitamin C research protocol is the first investigator-initiated protocol approved by the FDA in the history of CTCA. We are now taking our research here to the next level." Jeffrey Blumberg, professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston and a well respected antioxidant scientist, said that vitamin C "could result in reducing side effects of chemotherapy or as a potential booster to existing treatments." Blumberg is quoted: "I am not aware of anybody else now that is doing IV studies in patients with vitamin C to look at cancer effects. If this works, we would have a useful adjunct to chemotherapy treatment that could lower the dose."
