Mebendazole, Fenbendazole and Albendazole in Cancer Research

Table of Contents

1. What the Presentation Said
2. One Family, Three Different Drugs
3. How These Drugs Affect Cells
4. Brain Tumour Studies in Mice
5. Which Drugs Reach the Brain?
6. Mebendazole Trials in People With Brain Tumours
7. Mebendazole in Other Cancers
8. Albendazole: One Dose-Finding Trial
9. Fenbendazole in People: Case Reports
10. Liver and Blood Safety Compared
11. How the Claim Compares With the Research
12. What Is Not Known
13. Connections
14. Key Research Papers
15. Featured Videos

What the Presentation Said

Near the end of a section on antiparasitic medicines, the speaker showed a slide of several drugs and said the clinic's favourites were mebendazole and ivermectin, preferred even over fenbendazole. The speaker gave two reasons:

• mebendazole crosses the blood-brain barrier, and fenbendazole, the speaker said, does not;
• mebendazole is gentler on the liver; with fenbendazole, the speaker said, liver function tests need checking about every six weeks.

The speaker then described, in general terms, how several antiparasitic drugs show anticancer activity through more than one route: changing signalling inside tumour cells, disrupting microtubules (the speaker called them the architecture of the tumour cell, and said that disrupting them goes a long way towards destroying a cancer cell), and acting on the immune system and the tissue around a tumour. The speaker said this supports their use as repurposed drugs in cancer care, and mentioned research on ivermectin, on "the -azoles" such as fenbendazole, and on artemisinin and artesunate. The speaker also advised viewers to check with their own doctor about any protocol.

No study was named for the brain or liver comparison. Albendazole was not mentioned in the presentation; it is covered here because it belongs to the same family and has its own human cancer trial. A separate observational study of ivermectin with mebendazole that the speaker described next has its own page, The 2026 Ivermectin and Mebendazole Observational Study, and ivermectin is covered on Ivermectin in Cancer Research.

One Family, Three Different Drugs

The three drugs share a core chemical ring and a way of killing worms, but they sit in very different places in medicine.

Mebendazole

Mebendazole has been used in people since the early 1970s. The current US label for the 100 mg chewable tablet lists treatment of gut infections with pinworm, whipworm, roundworm (Ascaris) and the two common hookworms in patients aged two and older, at one tablet once for pinworm, or one tablet morning and evening for three days for the others. A 500 mg chewable tablet is labelled as a single dose for roundworm and whipworm from age one. The label explains that after a normal dose most of the drug stays inside the gut, where it acts on the worms: at 100 mg twice daily for three days, blood levels of mebendazole stay at or below 0.03 micrograms per millilitre. Absorbed drug is broken down mainly by the liver.

Albendazole

Albendazole is approved in the US for two tissue infections: brain cysts of the pork tapeworm (neurocysticercosis) and hydatid cysts of the dog tapeworm (Echinococcus) in the liver, lung and abdomen. Treating these infections means longer courses of a drug that must reach tissue, and albendazole's label carries detailed blood-count and liver-test monitoring rules (see Liver and Blood Safety Compared).

Fenbendazole

Fenbendazole is a veterinary dewormer. The US National Institutes of Health liver-injury reference (LiverTox) describes it as used mainly in cats and dogs, not approved for human use, and sold over the counter as an animal product, which is how people with cancer have come to take it (Hoofnagle, LiverTox, Fenbendazole). A 2024 review noted that because it is not approved by the US or European regulators, its absorption and safety in humans "have yet to be well-documented" (Nguyen and colleagues, 2024). The Fenbendazole page and its off-label cancer use page cover fenbendazole's laboratory studies and history in detail; this page does not repeat them.

How These Drugs Affect Cells

Every cell contains microtubules: hollow rods built from a protein called tubulin. They act as scaffolding and, during cell division, form the spindle that pulls the two copies of the chromosomes apart. Benzimidazoles kill worms by binding the worms' tubulin and stopping microtubules from forming. Several established cancer drugs, such as vincristine and paclitaxel, also act on microtubules, so researchers asked whether the deworming drugs would do the same to human cancer cells.

• In cell culture and mice (2002): researchers at a Texas cancer centre found that mebendazole made lung cancer cells stall in the middle of division and then die by apoptosis (programmed cell death). It caused abnormal spindles and broke down tubulin, though less strongly than the laboratory compound nocodazole. In mice, mebendazole given by mouth slowed tumours grown under the skin and reduced lung tumour spread, without the toxicity seen in mice given paclitaxel (Sasaki and colleagues, 2002).
• In brain tumour cell lines: mebendazole stopped glioblastoma cells growing at concentrations of 0.1 to 0.3 micromolar, and its effect matched how much it reduced tubulin assembly (Bai and colleagues, 2011).
• Other proposed routes: reviews list further effects seen mostly in cell culture: blocking new blood-vessel growth, switching off survival signals inside tumour cells, blocking pumps that push chemotherapy out of cells, adding to the effect of radiation and chemotherapy, and stirring an immune response against tumours (Guerini and colleagues, 2019; Meco and colleagues, 2023).

So the speaker's description of microtubule disruption, signalling changes and immune effects matches what the laboratory literature reports. What the laboratory literature cannot show is whether these effects happen strongly enough, at doses people can take, to shrink human tumours. That question belongs to the clinical trials below.

Brain Tumour Studies in Mice

The brain tumour line of research began with fenbendazole, by accident. A Johns Hopkins team reported that when their animal facility added fenbendazole to the mice's food to clear a pinworm outbreak, one of their brain tumour models stopped forming tumours, although it had engrafted reliably before (Bai and colleagues, 2011).

The team then tested four benzimidazoles (fenbendazole, thiabendazole, mebendazole and albendazole) on glioblastoma cells. They chose mebendazole and albendazole for animal work, stating two reasons: better potency in the cell tests, and existing approval for human use. Fenbendazole was not taken forward. In mice with brain tumours, mebendazole extended mean survival by up to 63%, more than albendazole did (Bai and colleagues, 2011). This choice is one reason mebendazole, not fenbendazole, went into human brain tumour trials.

A 2015 follow-up found that mebendazole comes in three crystal forms, called polymorphs A, B and C, and that commercial tablets differ in which form they contain. In mice with brain tumours, forms B and C extended survival and form A did not; form B was more toxic. Forms B and C reached brain concentrations about 29 times higher than the level needed to slow the tumour cells in the dish (Bai and colleagues, 2015). A 2026 systematic review of 22 studies reported that mebendazole slowed tumours and lengthened survival across mouse models of glioblastoma, diffuse midline glioma, medulloblastoma and meningioma (Blum and colleagues, 2026).

Which Drugs Reach the Brain?

The blood-brain barrier is the tightly sealed lining of the brain's blood vessels, which keeps many drugs out of brain tissue. The presentation said mebendazole crosses it and fenbendazole does not. Here is what was found for each drug.

Mebendazole: yes, measured in mice

In the 2015 mouse study, polymorph C of mebendazole reached a brain-to-blood exposure ratio of 0.82 over 24 hours, meaning brain levels were close to blood levels (Bai and colleagues, 2015). Reviews of brain cancer research describe mebendazole as able to cross the blood-brain barrier (Meco and colleagues, 2023), and the 2026 systematic review lists its central nervous system penetration as a reason it is being studied, noting that formulation matters (Blum and colleagues, 2026). In people, the label shows that a normal deworming dose gives very low blood levels, because most of the drug stays in the gut; the brain tumour trials below used doses many times higher.

Albendazole: yes, measured in people

Albendazole's label reports that its active form, albendazole sulfoxide, has been measured in human cerebrospinal fluid (the fluid around the brain and spinal cord), at levels two to four times lower than in blood at the same moment. Its approval for brain cysts of the pork tapeworm depends on reaching the brain.

Fenbendazole: no human measurement was found

No study measuring fenbendazole in human brain tissue or cerebrospinal fluid was found, so the claim that it does not cross the barrier has no human data behind it either way. The animal evidence that exists does not support a flat "does not cross":

• In the Johns Hopkins mouse colony, fenbendazole in food blocked brain tumours from taking hold (Bai and colleagues, 2011). That was an unplanned observation, and it does not prove the drug entered the brain, since it could have acted on the injected cells or elsewhere in the body.
• In a 2025 study in mice with tapeworm cysts injected into the brain, fenbendazole (60 mg/kg, both standard and in a nanoparticle form) led to breakdown of the brain cysts, as albendazole did, with less inflammation. The authors suggested the nanoparticle form might cross the barrier better (Yarzon and colleagues, 2025).

In short: mebendazole reaching the brain is supported in mice; fenbendazole not reaching it has not been shown in any study found.

Mebendazole Trials in People With Brain Tumours

Five published trials have given mebendazole to people with high-grade gliomas, the fast-growing brain tumours that include glioblastoma. All were small, and only one compared two groups, both of which received mebendazole.

• Newly diagnosed high-grade glioma, adults (phase 1, United States): 24 patients (18 with glioblastoma) took mebendazole with standard temozolomide chemotherapy after radiation, at doses rising from 25 to 200 mg/kg per day. Four patients at 200 mg/kg developed grade 3 (severe) rises in the liver enzymes alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and/or aspartate aminotransferase (AST) after a month, which reversed when the dose was lowered or stopped. Median overall survival was 21 months, with 41.7% alive at two years. There was no comparison group, so the trial cannot show whether mebendazole changed survival; the authors concluded that further studies are needed to determine efficacy (Gallia and colleagues, 2021).
• Recurrent glioblastoma, adults (phase 1, India): 11 patients received mebendazole with radiation and temozolomide, or with the chemotherapy drugs lomustine or temozolomide. The dose chosen for the next phase was 1,600 mg three times a day with temozolomide and 800 mg three times a day with lomustine. The commonest side effects were anaemia (9 of 11), nausea (7) and fatigue (6) (Patil and colleagues, 2020).
• Recurrent glioblastoma, adults (randomised phase 2, India): 88 patients were randomised to mebendazole plus lomustine or mebendazole plus temozolomide. The trial set a target of at least 55% of patients alive at nine months. The results were 36.6% (temozolomide arm) and 45% (lomustine arm), so neither combination reached the target. Severe side effects occurred in 18.6% and 9.5%, with no treatment-related deaths. The authors attributed part of the result to the many patients in poor general condition (Patil and colleagues, 2022).
• Children and young adults, mebendazole alone (phase 1, United States): 17 patients up to age 21 with brain tumours that had progressed took up to 2,500 mg/m² per day. There were no dose-limiting side effects, but mean time to progression was 7.6 weeks, and the authors reported "limited evidence of single-agent efficacy" (Phan and colleagues, 2025).
• Children and young adults, with bevacizumab and irinotecan (phase 1, United States): 10 patients, most with diffuse midline glioma, took mebendazole up to 200 mg/kg per day with two standard cancer drugs. There were no dose-limiting side effects; two partial responses and one complete response lasting 10 months were seen. Because every patient also received the two other drugs and there was no control group, the part played by mebendazole cannot be separated out (Krystal and colleagues, 2024).

The 2026 systematic review summed up the human evidence this way: mebendazole was generally tolerated at high doses in early trials, but "current clinical evidence does not demonstrate meaningful efficacy in brain tumour patients" (Blum and colleagues, 2026).

Mebendazole in Other Cancers

One small placebo-controlled trial in bowel cancer

The only placebo-controlled mebendazole cancer trial found was from Egypt. Forty people with metastatic colorectal cancer received six cycles of standard chemotherapy (FOLFOX4 with bevacizumab) plus either mebendazole 500 mg twice daily for 12 weeks or placebo tablets, in a double-blind design. After 12 weeks, 65% of the mebendazole group had a tumour response, against 10% of the placebo group, and median progression-free survival was 9.25 months against 3 months. Levels of the blood-vessel growth signal VEGF fell; the tumour marker CEA did not change significantly (Hegazy and colleagues, 2022).

These are large differences from a small trial at one centre, and the trial's registration (NCT03925662) is noted in the paper as made retrospectively, that is, after the study had started. No larger trial confirming the result was found. A 2023 systematic review of randomised drug-repurposing trials in cancer included a mebendazole trial in colorectal cancer and noted small samples and mixed patient groups as the main limits of such studies (Ioakeim-Skoufa and colleagues, 2023).

Case reports

• A 48-year-old man with adrenocortical carcinoma (a rare adrenal gland cancer) whose disease had progressed through several standard treatments was given mebendazole 100 mg twice daily as his only treatment. His metastases first shrank and then stayed stable for 19 months, with no significant side effects; the disease progressed after 24 months (Dobrosotskaya and colleagues, 2011).
• A short 2014 letter from Uppsala reported tumour remission with mebendazole in metastatic colon cancer that no longer responded to treatment (Nygren and Larsson, 2014). The letter has no abstract, and its details could not be read for this page.

Single case reports describe what happened to one person; they cannot show how often a drug helps, and cases where nothing happened are rarely published.

Albendazole: One Dose-Finding Trial

Albendazole has one published phase 1 cancer trial. In Sydney, 36 patients with advanced solid tumours that had stopped responding to treatment took albendazole by mouth for 14 days of each 21-day cycle, starting at 400 mg twice daily. The highest dose tolerated was 1,200 mg twice daily (2,400 mg a day). Bone-marrow suppression (falling blood counts) was the main dose-limiting side effect, with fatigue and mild stomach upset also common. In 4 of 24 patients who could be assessed (16%), a tumour blood marker fell by at least half, and blood VEGF levels declined (Pourgholami and colleagues, 2010).

Laboratory work continues. A 2024 screen of 1,600 approved drugs against colon cancer cells picked out albendazole as the strongest; it slowed colon tumours in mice and made chemotherapy-resistant cells sensitive again to 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin (Fatima and colleagues, 2024). Those results are from cell culture, mouse tumours and tumour organoids (small tumour samples grown in the dish), not from patients. One 2017 albendazole paper on stomach cancer cells was retracted in 2024 and is not used here.

Fenbendazole in People: Case Reports

No clinical trial of fenbendazole in people with cancer was found. The published human reports describe people who took the veterinary product on their own, and they are mostly reports of liver injury:

• An 80-year-old woman in Japan with advanced lung cancer, on the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, developed severe liver injury. She had been taking fenbendazole for a month based on social media reports. The injury resolved after she stopped; her tumour did not shrink (Yamaguchi and colleagues, 2021).
• A 67-year-old woman in the United States developed jaundice and severe liver injury, the first case confirmed on liver biopsy; her liver tests returned to normal three months after she stopped fenbendazole (Thakurdesai and colleagues, 2024).
• A 65-year-old man with prostate cancer took veterinary fenbendazole and ivermectin on alternating days for three months, following advice from online groups. His alanine aminotransferase rose to 1,764 U/L and his bilirubin to 12.9 mg/dL. A standard causality score rated the drugs a "highly probable" cause, and his tests normalised within six weeks of stopping (Powderly and colleagues, 2026).

LiverTox states that fenbendazole is commonly associated with mild, short-lived liver-enzyme rises and can cause clinically apparent acute liver injury (Hoofnagle, LiverTox, Fenbendazole). One 2025 case series of three self-treating patients has been retracted and is not used here. The Fenbendazole Dosing, Cycling, and Safety page covers further safety detail.

Liver and Blood Safety Compared

The presentation compared the drugs on liver safety. No study was found that compared mebendazole and fenbendazole head to head in people, so the comparison rests on separate sources of very different quality: decades of labelled human use for mebendazole and albendazole, and case reports for fenbendazole.

Mebendazole

• The US label warns that neutropenia and agranulocytosis (dangerous falls in white blood cells) have been reported at higher doses and longer courses than used for gut worms, and calls for blood-count monitoring in those patients.
• It warns of convulsions reported in infants under one year, and of the severe skin reactions Stevens-Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis when mebendazole is used together with metronidazole.
• Post-marketing reports listed on the label include hepatitis and abnormal liver tests.
• LiverTox states that prolonged high-dose mebendazole has been associated with liver-enzyme rises and rare cases of clinically apparent liver injury (Hoofnagle, LiverTox, Mebendazole). In the adult brain tumour trial, 4 of the 15 patients at 200 mg/kg per day had severe enzyme rises (Gallia and colleagues, 2021).

Albendazole

• The US label reports deaths from bone-marrow suppression, and calls for blood counts at the start of each 28-day cycle and every two weeks during treatment.
• It calls for liver-enzyme tests before each cycle and at least every two weeks, warns of possible harm to an unborn baby, and describes seizures and other brain symptoms when treatment starts in people with brain cysts.
• LiverTox describes mild, transient enzyme rises as common and clinically apparent liver injury as rare (Hoofnagle, LiverTox, Albendazole). In the cancer trial, falling blood counts limited the dose (Pourgholami and colleagues, 2010).

Fenbendazole

• There is no human label, so there is no official monitoring schedule. The "every six weeks" interval mentioned in the presentation was not found in any guideline, label or study.
• The human safety record consists of the case reports above and the LiverTox summary.

Decisions about cancer treatment and antiparasitic medicines belong with a clinician; the Liver Function Tests page explains what alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and bilirubin measure.

How the Claim Compares With the Research

Supported

• Benzimidazoles disrupt microtubules in cancer cells, and laboratory studies also report effects on tumour signalling, blood-vessel growth and immune responses (Sasaki and colleagues, 2002; Guerini and colleagues, 2019).
• Mebendazole reaches the brain in mice, at levels close to blood levels for the best-studied crystal form (Bai and colleagues, 2015).
• Fenbendazole has a real liver-injury record in people who took it on their own (LiverTox; three case reports above).

Supported only in part

• Mebendazole being "gentler on the liver": its label and LiverTox describe liver injury as rare at normal doses, but at the high doses used in brain tumour trials severe enzyme rises occurred in 4 of 15 patients at the top dose. No head-to-head comparison with fenbendazole exists.
• Using these drugs as repurposed cancer medicines: human trials of mebendazole exist, but they are small, and the one randomised brain tumour trial missed its target. One small bowel cancer trial reported a large benefit that has not been repeated.

Not supported by any study found

• That fenbendazole does not cross the blood-brain barrier: no human measurement exists, and mouse studies show it acting on brain tumours and brain cysts (Bai and colleagues, 2011; Yarzon and colleagues, 2025).
• A specific six-weekly liver-test schedule for fenbendazole: no source was found for this interval.

What the research does not show

• No trial has shown that any benzimidazole lengthens survival from cancer. Published studies report laboratory activity, tolerability in early trials, and outcomes from uncontrolled or very small studies.

What Is Not Known

• Whether mebendazole, added to standard treatment, lengthens survival in any cancer. No large randomised trial with a non-mebendazole comparison group has been published.
• Whether the Egyptian bowel cancer result can be reproduced in a larger trial at more than one centre.
• How much mebendazole reaches human brain tumours. The brain measurements come from mice, and the 2026 review notes that formulation (crystal form) strongly affects exposure and was often not reported in trials (Blum and colleagues, 2026).
• How fenbendazole is absorbed, how far it spreads in the human body, and whether it reaches the human brain; no human pharmacology studies of this kind were found.
• How often liver injury occurs with self-administered fenbendazole. Case reports show that it happens, not how often.
• Whether combining these drugs with ivermectin or other agents changes either benefit or harm; the combination study described in the presentation is examined on its own page.

Connections

• Cancer and Parasites
• Ivermectin in Cancer Research
• The 2026 Ivermectin and Mebendazole Observational Study
• Artemisinin and Artesunate in Cancer Research
• Parasites in the Brain
• Fenbendazole
• Fenbendazole Off-Label Cancer Use
• Fenbendazole Dosing, Cycling, and Safety
• Ivermectin
• Albendazole and Mebendazole for Roundworm
• Neurocysticercosis
• Brain Cancer
• Colorectal Cancer
• Adrenocortical Carcinoma
• Liver Function Tests

Key Research Papers

1. Sasaki J, Ramesh R, Chada S, Gomyo Y, Roth JA, Mukhopadhyay T. The anthelmintic drug mebendazole induces mitotic arrest and apoptosis by depolymerizing tubulin in non-small cell lung cancer cells. Mol Cancer Ther. 2002;1(13):1201-9. PubMed PMID: 12479701
2. Bai RY, Staedtke V, Aprhys CM, Gallia GL, Riggins GJ. Antiparasitic mebendazole shows survival benefit in 2 preclinical models of glioblastoma multiforme. Neuro Oncol. 2011;13(9):974-82. PubMed PMID: 21764822
3. Bai RY, Staedtke V, Wanjiku T, Rudek MA, Joshi A, Gallia GL, Riggins GJ. Brain Penetration and Efficacy of Different Mebendazole Polymorphs in a Mouse Brain Tumor Model. Clin Cancer Res. 2015;21(15):3462-3470. PubMed PMID: 25862759
4. Guerini AE, Triggiani L, Maddalo M, Bonù ML, Frassine F, Baiguini A, Alghisi A, Tomasini D, Borghetti P, Pasinetti N, Bresciani R, Magrini SM, Buglione M. Mebendazole as a Candidate for Drug Repurposing in Oncology: An Extensive Review of Current Literature. Cancers (Basel). 2019;11(9):1284. PubMed PMID: 31480477
5. Meco D, Attinà G, Mastrangelo S, Navarra P, Ruggiero A. Emerging Perspectives on the Antiparasitic Mebendazole as a Repurposed Drug for the Treatment of Brain Cancers. Int J Mol Sci. 2023;24(2):1334. PubMed PMID: 36674870
6. Blum CB, McMenamin M, Khoo T, Edwin JM, Jose P, O'Callaghan LA. From anthelmintic to neuro-oncology: A systematic review of mebendazole repurposing for brain tumour therapy. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2026 (online ahead of print). PubMed PMID: 42120351
7. Gallia GL, Holdhoff M, Brem H, Joshi AD, Hann CL, Bai RY, Staedtke V, Blakeley JO, Sengupta S, Jarrell TC, Wollett J, Szajna K, Helie N, Mattox AK, Ye X, Rudek MA, Riggins GJ. Mebendazole and temozolomide in patients with newly diagnosed high-grade gliomas: results of a phase 1 clinical trial. Neurooncol Adv. 2021;3(1):vdaa154. PubMed PMID: 33506200
8. Patil VM, Bhelekar A, Menon N, Bhattacharjee A, Simha V, Abhinav R, Abhyankar A, Sridhar E, Mahajan A, Puranik AD, Purandare N, Janu A, Ahuja A, Krishnatry R, Gupta T, Jalali R. Reverse swing-M, phase 1 study of repurposing mebendazole in recurrent high-grade glioma. Cancer Med. 2020;9(13):4676-4685. PubMed PMID: 32400117
9. Patil VM, Menon N, Chatterjee A, Tonse R, Choudhari A, Mahajan A, Puranik AD, Epari S, Jadhav M, Pathak S, Peelay Z, Walavalkar R, Muthuluri HK, Ravi Krishna M, Chandrasekharan A, Pande N, Gupta T, Banavali S, Jalali R. Mebendazole plus lomustine or temozolomide in patients with recurrent glioblastoma: A randomised open-label phase II trial. EClinicalMedicine. 2022;49:101449. PubMed PMID: 35747192
10. Phan P, Stapleton SL, Riggins GJ, Koldobskiy MA, Raabe E, Cohen KJ. Phase 1 study of mebendazole therapy for refractory/progressive or recurrent pediatric brain tumors. Neurooncol Pract. 2025;12(6):1092-1098. PubMed PMID: 41458919
11. Krystal J, Hanson D, Donnelly D, Atlas M. A phase 1 study of mebendazole with bevacizumab and irinotecan in high-grade gliomas. Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2024;71(4):e30874. PubMed PMID: 38234020
12. Hegazy SK, El-Azab GA, Zakaria F, Mostafa MF, El-Ghoneimy RA. Mebendazole; from an anti-parasitic drug to a promising candidate for drug repurposing in colorectal cancer. Life Sci. 2022;299:120536. PubMed PMID: 35385794
13. Ioakeim-Skoufa I, Tobajas-Ramos N, Menditto E, Aza-Pascual-Salcedo M, Gimeno-Miguel A, Orlando V, González-Rubio F, Fanlo-Villacampa A, Lasala-Aza C, Ostasz E, Vicente-Romero J. Drug Repurposing in Oncology: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials. Cancers (Basel). 2023;15(11):2972. PubMed PMID: 37296934
14. Dobrosotskaya IY, Hammer GD, Schteingart DE, Maturen KE, Worden FP. Mebendazole monotherapy and long-term disease control in metastatic adrenocortical carcinoma. Endocr Pract. 2011;17(3):e59-62. PubMed PMID: 21454232
15. Nygren P, Larsson R. Drug repositioning from bench to bedside: tumour remission by the antihelmintic drug mebendazole in refractory metastatic colon cancer. Acta Oncol. 2014;53(3):427-8. PubMed PMID: 24160353
16. Pourgholami MH, Szwajcer M, Chin M, Liauw W, Seef J, Galettis P, Morris DL, Links M. Phase I clinical trial to determine maximum tolerated dose of oral albendazole in patients with advanced cancer. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol. 2010;65(3):597-605. PubMed PMID: 19904538
17. Fatima I, Ahmad R, Barman S, Gowrikumar S, Pravoverov K, Primeaux M, Fisher KW, Singh AB, Dhawan P. Albendazole inhibits colon cancer progression and therapy resistance by targeting ubiquitin ligase RNF20. Br J Cancer. 2024;130(6):1046-1058. PubMed PMID: 38278978
18. Yarzon PO, Nunes WS, Picanço GA, de Moura ACL, Rodovalho AIC, de Souza JY, de Campos GB, Junior RSL, Bedogni G, Salomon CJ, Vinaud MC. Nanosuspensions of fenbendazole and ivermectin induce parasite death and low inflammatory response in experimental neurocysticercosis. Acta Trop. 2025;270:107776. PubMed PMID: 40783068
19. Nguyen J, Nguyen TQ, Han BO, Hoang BX. Oral Fenbendazole for Cancer Therapy in Humans and Animals. Anticancer Res. 2024;44(9):3725-3735. PubMed PMID: 39197912
20. Yamaguchi T, Shimizu J, Oya Y, Horio Y, Hida T. Drug-Induced Liver Injury in a Patient with Nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer after the Self-Administration of Fenbendazole Based on Social Media Information. Case Rep Oncol. 2021;14(2):886-891. PubMed PMID: 34248555
21. Thakurdesai A, Rivera-Matos L, Nagra N, Busch B, Mais DD, Cave MC. Severe Drug-Induced Liver Injury Due to Self-administration of the Veterinary Anthelmintic Medication, Fenbendazole. ACG Case Rep J. 2024;11(5):e01354. PubMed PMID: 38706451
22. Powderly GE, Hassevoort K, Loy M, Balonier J, Sievers C. Drug-Induced Liver Injury Following Co-ingestion of Veterinary Fenbendazole and Ivermectin for Prostate Cancer: A Case Report. Cureus. 2026;18(5):e108896. PubMed PMID: 42299164
23. Hoofnagle JH. Fenbendazole. In: LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury. Bethesda (MD): National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; 2012-. PubMed PMID: 42081641
24. Hoofnagle JH. Mebendazole. In: LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury. Bethesda (MD): National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; 2012-. PubMed PMID: 31643221
25. Hoofnagle JH. Albendazole. In: LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury. Bethesda (MD): National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; 2012-. PubMed PMID: 31643681

PubMed Topic Searches

1. Mebendazole and glioma: clinical trials
2. Mebendazole repurposing in cancer
3. Albendazole and cancer
4. Fenbendazole and liver injury

Other Sources

1. DailyMed (US National Library of Medicine): mebendazole 100 mg chewable tablet, US prescribing information
2. DailyMed: mebendazole 500 mg chewable tablet, US prescribing information
3. DailyMed: albendazole tablets, US prescribing information

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