Ivermectin's Role in Cancer Treatment

Uh, looking at the various mechanisms of how ivermectin might act in cancer, uh, and what cancers ivermectin impacts. And it really seems to be a broad anticancer agent,

uh, that, that can be used in, in, in, in a variety of cancers, anything from blood cancers to, to solid tumors as well. And, um, it's, it's just a such a fascinating, uh, it's just such a fascinating molecule because when you look at the mechanisms of action... Now, this is an antiparasitic, a, a very successful

antiparasitic, and yet it has different mechanisms of action in cancer. It targets cancer stem cells, for example. Mm-hmm. Something that I find really fascinating where it, it's, it's

able to, uh, attack these cancer stem cells that don't necessarily proliferate rapidly, but, you know, these are cells that could cause problems in the future, that could cause metastases in the future, that could cause cancer recurrence in the future.

And I, and I believe that when you have standard chemotherapy, standard chemotherapy will kill the rapidly dividing cells- Mm ...

um, just based on the nature of, of, of the rapid proliferation. But they will not kill slowly dividing cells often, uh, and they, the chemotherapy may not kill cancer stem And so you often hear chemo being referred to as palliative instead of curative.

Mm. The intent is palliative to, you know, the, the... They will tell you, "You cannot cure stage four, uh, pancreatic cancer," for example. "You cannot cure stage four ovarian

We can buy you time with chemotherapy, which will kill most of the cancer and, and shrink a lot of the tumors and so on, but it will not kill the cancer stem cells, and it will not kill cancer cells that are resistant to that chemo," because cancer cells

can develop a resistance to certain chemotherapy. They might have, you know, these pumps that just pump the chemotherapy right out of the cell. And so in, in some cases, like ovarian cancer specifically, these tumors can develop a resistance to

chemotherapy. That's why the oncologist has to change the chemo and go to the next agent and so on. Well, ivermectin can kill cancer stem cells that chemo can't. Ivermectin can also reverse what's called

multi-drug resistance in cancer cells. Mm. And so it can actually sensitize cancer cells to chemotherapy. It's also a radiosensitizer. It can, it can sensitize cancer cells to radiation therapy, for example, as well. Now, it has other actions.

It can inhibit the tumor's ability to form new blood vessels, so it can inhibit angiogenesis. Mm. Uh, ivermectin also inhibits certain enzymes called, uh,

matrix metalloproteinases, which are enzymes that detach cancer cells from the tumor and allow it to metastasize and spread to other parts of the body through the bloodstream. And so ivermectin will actually inhibit those enzymes, um, so that it, it inhibits metastasis of the tumor, for

example. So when you look at it, there's a dozen different mechanisms by which ivermectin acts, acts on the molecular level on cancers. And so then you ask the question, "Why-- Where are the human trials?" Yeah. Because that's what it ultimately comes down to. Yes, preclinical research

is nice. We have hundreds of papers on ivermectin and cancer. Where are the human trials? And there aren't any. Uh, there are case reports. There's a case series on three patients with leukemia. Uh, I believe two of them were able to achieve some form of

remission, uh, with ivermectin, um, and that's it. Uh, uh, we don't have any randomized control trials. We don't have any large studies in humans. And then you find out, well, i- ivermectin's been off patent since the nineteen

nineties. I believe Merck held the patent. Uh, uh, the patent expired in '96, I believe. And so it's a cheap drug that's off patent.