The Medical Advisor

Abstract The antiparasitic agents fenbendazole, mebendazole and ivermectin have recently emerged as promising candidates for adjunctive cancer therapy due to their multifaceted anticancer mechanisms and favorable safety profiles. Fenbendazole and mebendazole, benzimidazole derivatives, exert antitumor effects primarily through microtubule disruption and metabolic interference, inducing cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Ivermectin, a macrocyclic lactone, complements these actions by inhibiting oncogenic signaling pathways such as STAT3, Wnt/β-catenin, and AKT/mTOR, while modulating immune responses.  Recently, ivermectin has been investigated not only in dual combinations with benzimidazoles but also as part of a triple‑agent strategy involving fenbendazole and mebendazole to potentially enhance anticancer effects. Systematic reviews of publicly reported case data suggest temporal associations between this triple combination and tumor regression across diverse malignancies, although...

Abstract Background: Patients with advanced solid tumors progressing after first-line standard-of-care (SOC) therapies face limited options and poor outcomes. Drug repurposing offers a strategy to identify novel therapeutic candidates. Ivermectin, mebendazole, and fenbendazole have demonstrated anticancer activity in preclinical and computational studies, but clinical evidence remains limited. Methods: We conducted a fully in silico , adaptive, Bayesian trial simulation evaluating ivermectin, mebendazole, and fenbendazole as second-line therapy in advanced cancers. A virtual cohort of 50,000 synthetic patients was generated using molecular and clinical distributions derived from public oncology datasets. Dual- and triple-drug regimens were compared with historical second-line SOC benchmarks. Simulated endpoints included progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), toxicity risk, and resistance emergence. Results...

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) promises decisions grounded in rigorous scientific evidence, but its foundation has eroded under commercial pressures, methodological flaws, and a failure to account for individual variation. While randomized controlled trials (RCTs) remain the touted gold standard, they are often costly, slow, and poorly suited to personalized health. A growing movement toward N-of-1 trials and real-world evidence offers a more practical and individualized path forward. The Corruption of Evidence-Based Medicine The core idea of EBM—formally studying treatments to avoid flawed human perception—is sound. It has delivered successes, such as clarifying when angioplasty benefits acute heart attacks but not chronic heart disease (e.g., COURAGE and ORBITA trials). (1) Yet leaders in the field have grown disillusioned. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, stated in 2015 that "much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." Marcia Angell...