Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Reevaluation of prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer

Abstract

A study has been made of the survival times of 100 terminal cancer patients who were given supplemental ascorbate, usually 0 g/day, as part of their routine management and 1000 matched controls, similar patients who had received the same treatment except for the ascorbate. The two sets of patients were in part the same as those used in our earlier study [Cameron, E. & Pauling, L. (1976) Proc. NatL Acad. Sci. USA 73,[3685][3686][3687][3688][3689]. Tests confirm that the ascorbate-treated patients and the matched controls are representative subpopulations of the same population of "untreatable" patients. Survival times were measured not only from the date of "untreatability" but also from the precisely known date of first hospital attendance for the cancer that eventually reached the terminal stage. The ascorbate-treated patients were found to have a mean survival time about 300 days greater than that of the controls. Survival times greater than 1 yr after the date of untreatability were observed for 22%o of the ascorbate-treated patients and for 0.4% of the controls. The mean survival time of these 22 ascorbatetreated patients is 2.4 yr after reaching the apparently terminal stage; 8 of the ascorbate-treated patients are still alive, with a mean survival time after untreatability of 3.5 yr.A year and a half ago we reported (1) the results of a clinical trial in which 100 terminal cancer patients were given supplemental sodium ascorbate (usually 10 g/day) as part of their routine management, with their progress compared with that of 1000 similar patients who were treated identically (by the same clinicians in the same hospital) except that they received no supplemental ascorbate. The reported mean survival time after the patient had been recognized to be terminal ("untreatable" in Scottish medical practice) was more than 210 days for the ascorbate subjects and 50 days for their matched controls. Analysis of the survival-time curves indicated that deaths occur for about 90% of the ascorbate-treated patients at onethird the rate for the controls and that the other 10% have a much greater survival time. The results seemed clearly to indicate that this simple and safe form of medication is of definite value in the treatment of patients with advanced cancer.Several experienced investigators in this field have expressed to us their doubt as to whether the ascorbate-treated patients and their controls comprised representative subpopulations of the same population and whether comparable times of untreatability had been assigned to the two groups. We decided to investigate these questions.A new set of control patients was selected, and tests were carried out, as described in the following paragraphs, to answer the questions that had been raised. Our conclusion is that the results previously reported are valid, and, in fact, the increase in life expectancy of ascorbate-treated patients with terminalThe publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be her...

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