A compounded medication is created by a veterinarian or licensed pharmacist on an individual basis to meet the needs of your pet. It is prescribed if there is a reason that your pet can’t be treated by an FDA-approved drug, such as difficulty in swallowing capsules, dosage strength not available commercially or allergy to an ingredient in the FDA-approved medication.
A case of a lung cancer patient who self-administered fenben, an antihelmintic drug, as a therapy to treat her tumor. She presented with a non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumor that was resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The tumor regressed after fenbendazole administration.
To examine whether the tumor regression was related to apoptosis or autophagy, we investigated the effect of fenbendazole on both 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) sensitive SNU-C5 and 5-FU resistant SNU-C5/5-FUR CRC cells. Fenbendazole treatment significantly reduced the growth of both cells. However, the antiproliferative effect was more pronounced in cells with wild-type p53, indicating that apoptosis through p53 is involved in the antiproliferative effect of fenbendazole.
In fenbendazole-treated cells, the expression of Beclin-1 and LC3 was increased. However, the expression of caspase-3, active GPX4, and ferroptosis were not significantly increased. The data suggest that fenbendazole induces apoptosis partly through p53-mediated apoptosis and also through ferroptosis, autophagy, and decreased expression of SLC7A11 and GPX4. The result indicates that fenbendazole may inhibit cellular proliferation by targeting mitochondrial complex I to increase free iron availability. It may be a novel therapeutic strategy to treat malignant tumors.